New Negro Alliance v. Sanitary Grocery Co., 303 U.S. 552 (1938), was a landmark United States Supreme Court decision, which affects US labor law, safeguarding a right to boycott and in the struggle by African Americans against discriminatory hiring practices. Sanitary Grocery Co. was at the time of the case owned by Safeway Inc.
Facts
"An association of Negroes, organized for the mutual improvement of its members and the promotion of civic, educational, benevolent, and charitable enterprises, requested a Grocery Company to adopt a policy of employing Negro clerks, in the course of personnel changes, in certain stores of the company patronized largely by colored people but in which no colored clerks were employed. The request was ignored, whereupon the organization caused a picket, bearing a placard reading "Do Your Part! Buy Where You Work! No Negroes Employed Here," to patrol in front of one of the stores, on one day, and caused, or threatened to cause, a similar patrol of two other stores."
Judgment
The court concluded that according to the United States Congress "peaceful and orderly dissemination of information by those defined as persons interested in a labor dispute concerning 'terms and conditions of employment' in an industry or a plant or a place of business should be lawful; that, short of fraud, breach of the peace, violence, or conduct otherwise unlawful, those having a direct or indirect interest in such terms and conditions of employment should be at liberty to advertise and disseminate facts and information with respect to terms and conditions of employment, and peacefully to persuade others to concur in their views respecting an employer's practices."
