In "NAACP v. Alabama", the state had obtained a court order requiring the NAACP to produce membership lists. Upon its refusal to comply, the NAACP was held in contempt. The Supreme Court reversed, permitting the NAACP to assert the rights of its members and holding that the state court order violated their First Amendment right of freedom of association. The Court noted that because litigation by individual NAACP members would require disclosure of their identity and thus destroy the freedom of association threatened by the court order, the NAACP was a proper party to act on the members' behalf to assert their constitutional rights.