Black Pro-Lifers Score First Amendment Victory; DOJ Agrees to Pay Attorneys’ Fees

A group of black pro-lifers, including Rev. Clenard Childress of Black Genocide, protested outside the District of Columbia’s new black history museum and wanted to show images of what abortion does to unborn babies.

Black women are disproportionately represented in abortion statistics, and the pro-lifers wanted visitors to understand this part of black history. They call abortion “black genocide.”

The museum, part of the Smithsonian, wouldn’t let them show these images, hand out literature, or speak to visitors on taxpayer-owned land. The pro-lifers sued the federal government in July for violation of their First Amendment rights.

The American Freedom Law Center (AFLC), the pro-lifers’ legal counsel, reported that the group has won the case.

Shortly after the lawsuit was filed, AFLC attorneys were contacted by an attorney from the Department of Justice who confirmed our clients’ First Amendment rights and who stated that the federal government wanted to settle the case on terms favorable to our clients.

Yesterday, the parties filed a stipulated dismissal in which the federal government formally acknowledged “that the public sidewalks forming the perimeter of the National Museum of African American History and Culture are available for First Amendment activity” and agreed to pay AFLC its attorneys’ fees incurred for having to file the complaint. (emphasis added)

The pro-lifers, led by Rev. Childress, noted that the Smithsonian celebrates late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, who advocated abortion, but excludes the pro-life Justice Clarence Thomas.

Additionally the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery displays a bust of Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger. The museum turned down black pro-lifers’ request to remove the bust.

The Center for Urban Renewal and Education founder and president Star Parker asked the NAACP in 2015 to take the lead in demanding that the Smithsonian remove the bust.