In 1977, a neo-Nazi group called the National Socialist Party of America applied for a permit to march through Skokie, Illinois, a predominantly Jewish, Chicago suburb. They wanted to wear brown shirts with swastika armbands and wave signs demanding "free speech for white people."

The village refused the permit. The group sued, and it ignited a national debate over the First Amendment that may sound familiar today. Does the constitutional right to free speech protect offensive, even hateful speech? Can words cause real damage?

Skokie's attorneys argued that seeing the swastika and hearing chants of "Sieg Heil" on their streets would amount to a physical attack on the hundreds of Holocaust survivors who lived in Skokie.

I remember speaking with Magda Brown over iced tea on her porch. She

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