In the 1960s, the citizens of Port Gibson, Mississippi, organised a boycott of segregated white businesses that the state ruled illegal - but the U.S. Supreme Court overruled, declaring that the First Amendment protects citizens’ right to boycott. This may prove valuable as three landmark cases reach their conclusions. Support for recent state anti-boycott legislation comes from the evangelical right, lobby groups and politicians from both parties. Opponents say that these laws infringe free speech - and that very few words would need to be changed to produce laws that restrict the right to protest in other arenas.

In Part Three, ‘The Template’, the three cases reach their separate verdicts.