During the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s, a group of southern leaders/activists who were frustrated with the lack of coverage of protests in the South took out a full-page ad in theNew York Times.An excerpt from the ad follows below.

This ad called out the actions of various city officials across the South. In particular, the third paragraph of the ad called out actions of the Commission of Public Safety in Montgomery, Alabama, L.B. Sullivan. As you can read, though, Sullivan isn't named.He still personally brought a libel suit against theNew York Timesfor allowing the ad to run.We will discuss this case fully soon, but I would like you to consider the libel elements we have discussed so far andanswer the following questions.

1) Based on the six libel elements we've discussed, does Sullivan have a strong suit for libel?

2) If yes, which is his easiest element(s) to establish?If no, which element(s) will be difficult for him to prove?

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The New York Times

NEW YORK, TUESDAY, MARCH 29, 1960

"The growing movement of peaceful mass

demonstrations by Negroes is something

new in the South, something understandable....

Let Congress heed their rising voices,

for they will be heard."

- New York Times editorial

Saturday, March 19, 1960

Heed Their Rising Voices (full ad texthere(Links to an external site.)

)

As the whole world knows by now, thousands of Southern Negro students are engaged in wide-spread non-violent demonstrations in positive affirmation of the right to live in human dignity as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights.In their efforts to uphold these guarantees, they are being met by an unprecedented wave of terror by those who would deny and negate that document which the whole world looks upon as setting the pattern for modern freedom....

In Orangeburg, South Carolina, when 400 students peacefully sought to buy doughnuts and coffee at lunch counters in the business district, they were forcibly ejected, tear-gassed, soaked to the skin in freezing weather with fire hoses, arrested en masse and herded into an open barbed-wire stockade to stand for hours in the bitter cold.

In Montgomery, Alabama, after students sang "My Country, 'Tis of Thee" on the State Capitol steps, their leaders were expelled from school, and truck-loads of police armed with shotguns and tear-gas ringed the Alabama State College Campus.When the entire student body protested to state authorities by refusing to re-register, their dining hall was pad-locked in an attempt to starve them into submission. ...

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Consider the elements of libel (stopping with #6):

1) Statement of fact

2) Published

3) Of and concerning the Plaintiff

4) Defamatory

5) False

6) Harm

7) for which the defendant is at Fault