Harrison v. National Ass'n for the Advancement of Colored People’s Empirical Analysis
1959
Citation profile
399 federal appellate · 204 district · 36 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,275 later decisions (91 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 2025 · most notably National Association for Advancement of Colored People v. Y Button (1963), Dombrowski v. Pfister (1965)
399 federal appellate · 204 district · 36 state decisions — followed in 13 states
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Applies 28 U.S.C. § 1253 · 28 U.S.C. § 1331 · 28 U.S.C. § 1332 (Class Action Fairness Act of 2005) · 28 U.S.C. § 1343 · 28 U.S.C. § 2281 · 42 U.S.C. § 1981 (Civil Rights Act of 1866) · 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act))
Relies on Brown et al. v. Board of Education of Topeka et al. · Railroad Commission v. Pullman Co. · Cantwell v. State of Connecticut · National Association for Advancement of Colored People v. State of Alabama Patterson · Hague v. Committee for Industrial Organization
Cited together with Railroad Commission v. Pullman Co. · Zwickler v. Koota · Baggett v. Bullitt · England v. Louisiana State Board of Medical Examiners · Younger v. Harris
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 1,275 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[F]ederal courts should not adjudicate the constitutionality of state enactments fairly open to interpretation until the state courts have been afforded a reasonable opportunity to pass upon them.”
57 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““That all persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the accommodations, advantages, facilities, and privileges of inns, public conveyances on land or water, theaters, and other places of public amusement; subject only to the conditions and limitations established by law, and applicable alike to citizens of every race and color, regardless of any previous condition of servitude. “Sec. 2. That any person who shall violate the foregoing section by denying to any citizen, except for reasons by law applicable to citizens of every race and color, and regardless of any previous condition of servitude, the full enjoyment of any of the accommodations, advantages, facilities, or privileges in said section enumerated, or by aiding or inciting such denial, shall, for every such offense, forfeit and pay the sum of five hundred dollars to the person aggrieved thereby, to be recovered in an action of debt, with full costs; and shall also, for every such offense, be deemed guilty of a misdemean- or, and, upon conviction thereof, shall be fined not less than five hundred nor more than one thousand dollars, or shall be imprisoned not less than thirty days nor more than one year: Provided, That all persons may elect to sue for the penalty aforesaid or to proceed under their rights at common law and by State statutes; and having so elected to proceed in the one mode or the other, their right to proceed in the other jurisdiction shal”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“[T]he District Court of course possesses ample authority in this action, or in such supplemental proceedings as may be initiated, to protect the appellees while [the state case] goes forward.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.