In Shuttlesworth v. City of Birmingham, 394 U.S. 147 (1969), the Supreme Court examined a Birmingham, Alabama city ordinance regulating parades and demonstrations on Birmingham's public streets and sidewalks. The ordinance required anyone wishing to use a public street or sidewalk for a parade or other public demonstration to secure a permit. Id. The ordinance then said that once the application was submitted, the permit would be granted "unless in [the city commission's] judgment the public welfare, peace, safety, health, decency, good order, morals or convenience require that it be refused." Id. The Supreme Court overturned the ordinance, holding that "a municipality may not empower its licensing officials to roam essentially at will, dispensing or withholding permission to speak, assemble, picket, or parade according to their own opinions regarding the potential effect of the activity in question on the 'welfare,' decency,' or 'morals' of the community." 394 U.S. at 153.