NAACP Chapters Banned in Alabama and Targeted Across South

In 1956, Alabama Attorney General John Patterson obtains a court order banning the NAACP from operating in Alabama on grounds that it has not registered as a foreign corporation. The ban, upheld for eight years until NAACP v. Alabama in 1964, effectively silences the organization in the state. Texas, Virginia, Georgia, and South Carolina pass laws requiring membership lists to be disclosed — knowing that exposure would lead to economic retaliation and physical danger for members.