Commentary: Comedy clubs as free speech zones — and the antidote to cancel culture
by Ronald Collins and Ronnie Marmo, Chicago Tribune
Apr 24, 2023
3 minutes
On Nov. 24, 1964, the Illinois Supreme Court did what no other state high court had ever done — it vindicated Lenny Bruce’s free speech right to perform provocative routines in comedy clubs. But the freewheeling comedian was not so lucky in New York; a state court thereafter convicted him of obscenity for his comedic bits. It was just one of such prosecutions, the others being in San Francisco and Los Angeles. The New York conviction stood since Bruce
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