Central Fla. ACLU history

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A SHORT HISTORY OF THE ACLU

         "We must remember that a right lost to one is lost to all. The ACLU remembers and it acts. The cause it serves so well is an imperative of freedom." - William Reece Smith, Jr., former president, American Bar Association
   When Roger Baldwin, Crystal Eastman, Albert DeSilver and others founded the ACLU in 1920, civil liberties were in a sorry state. Citizens were sifting in jail for holding antiwar views or organizing trade unions. U.S. Attorney General Palmer was conducting raids upon aliens suspected of holding unorthodox opinions. Racial segregation was the law of the land and violence against African-Americans was routine. Sex discrimination was firmly institutionalized; indeed, women only won the right to vote in August of that year. Constitutional rights for lesbians, gay men and the poor were virtually unthinkable. Significantly, the Supreme Court had yet to uphold a single free speech claim under the First Amendment.
   Since 1920 the ACLU has led the way in creating a body of law that has made the principles of equal rights, freedom of expression, due process and fundamental fairness come alive - even for segments of our population that have traditionally been denied these rights. While many of these battles have been waged in the courts, during the last two decades the organization has increased its educational and legislative activities in the Congress and in state legislatures. The ACLU was the first public interest law fin-n of its kind, and immediately began the work of transforming the ideals contained in the Bill of Rights into living, breathing realities. Some highlights:
      In the 1920s, Clarence Darrow, as an ACLU cooperating attorney, defended science teacher John Scopes in the famous Scopes "Monkey Trial," which challenged Tennessee's anti-evolution statute. Scopes was convicted. and fined $100. On appeal, the Tennessee Supreme Court upheld the statute but reversed the conviction.
      In 1933, after a long anti-censorship battle supported by the ACLU, a New York federal court lifted a U.S. Customs Service ban on the sale in the United States of James Joyce's novel Ulysses.
   In 1933, after a long anti-censorship battle supported by the ACLU, a New York federal court lifted a U.S. Customs Service ban on the sale in the United States of James Joyce's novel Ulysses.
   Mayor Frank ("I Am the Law") Hague of Jersey City claimed the right to deny free speech to anyone he thought radical. In 1939, the ACLU took Hague to the Supreme Court, which ruled that public places such as streets and parks belong to the people, not the mayor.
   In the 1940s, 120,000 American citizens and resident aliens of Japanese origin were forced to evacuate their West Coast homes and were relocated to inland U.S. concentration camps. The episode was a national disgrace, rightfully called by the ACLU "the worst single wholesale violation of civil rights of American citizens in our history." The strongest voices against the internment came from ACLU affiliates on the West Coast. The ACLU was active in the successful passage of reparations legislation in 1980.
   In the 1950s, Congress and many state legislatures passed loyalty-oath laws requiring one group or another, particularly public school teachers, to swear that they were not Communists or members of any "subversive organizations." Throughout the decade, the ACLU fought a running battle against the government's loyalty-security program.
The ACLU, pursuant to its longstanding commitment to racial integration, joined the legal battle, spearheaded by the NAACP, that began years before and would continue far beyond the May 17, 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, to integrate schools.
In the 1960s, from the first lunch counter sit-in through the freedom rides and later mass marches, the ACLU supported the civil rights movements goal of equality and its means of achieving that goal through peaceful demonstrations.
The ACLU has opposed the criminal prohibition of drugs since 1968. The ACLU continues to vigorously oppose the :nwar on Drugs" because of massive and continuing civil liberties violations, many of which are directed disproportionately against people of color.
Through a series of cases brought to the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1970s and 1980s, the ACLU Women's Rights Project established that sex discrimination violates the 14th Amendment.
ACLU lawyers brought many of the most important reproductive freedom cases of the last 30 years. In 1973, in Roe v. Wade, and Doe v. Bolton, the Supreme Court held that the constitutional right to privacy encompasses a pregnant woman's decision whether to bear a child or have an abortion. The ruling struck down state laws that had made the performance of an abortion a criminal act. The ACLU remains in the forefront of the struggle for reproductive rights and for women's equality.
     Since 1976 when the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty. in Gregg V.Georgia, the ACLU has fought for both abolition and for the effective representation of persons facing death. The ACLU opposes the death penalty because it constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, is fundamentally unfair and is imposed disproportionately on the poor and on people of color. In 1983 the ACLU funded a death penalty lawyer in Atlanta to assist in the representation of death row inmates. The ACLU National Death Penalty Campaign is currently working vigorously in support of a moratorium on executions.
     In the 1980s, more than 15 months of grassroots lobbying by the ACLU and other groups paid off when the Congress overwhelmingly voted to renew the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The ACLU has handled and continues to handle more voting rights cases than any other organization.
     In 1981, the ACLU, 56 years after the Scopes trial, challenged an Arkansas statute requiring that the biblical story of creation be taught as a "scientific alternative" to the theory of evolution. A federal court found the statute, which fundamentalists saw as a model for other states, unconstitutional.
     In 1989, the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated a Texas statute punishing flag desecration, which the Justices described as a form of political speech protected by the First Amendment. The House of Representatives then passed an amendment to the Constitution requiring punishment to "protect" the flag. The ACLU fought back, warning Congress that such an amendment would incinerate the very principles for which the flag stands. The ACLU prevailed in the Senate.
   In 1996 the Supreme Court recognized for the first time the civil rights of lesbians and gay men by invalidating a state constitutional amendment, passed by public referendum in Colorado, that prohibited the state and its municipalities from enacting gay rights laws. The ACLU served as co-counsel in that landmark litigation.
   In 1997 the Court struck down the 1996 Communications Decency Act, which censored the Internet by banning 'indecent" speech. Although this was a major First Amendment victory to the information age, the battle continues; the ACLU often finds itself defending online free speech from further assault.
   Since its inception the ACLU has fought to expand and enforce the civil rights and civil liberties of noncitizens and to combat discrimination against immigrants. For the last decade the Immigrants' Rights Project has been at the forefront of every major legal struggle to secure immigration rights. This role has become particularly crucial as Congress continues to pass draconian anti-immigrant legislation.
   The ACLU has taken the lead nationally in the struggle to end racial profiling, and police brutality and maintains one of the largest civil rights dockets in the country.
    The national ACLU is headquartered in New York City with a legislative office in Washington, D.C. and a Southern Regional Office in Atlanta concentrating on voting rights and race discrimination. The ACLU has nine national projects devoted to specific civil liberties issues: AIDS, capital punishment, drug policy litigation, lesbian and gay rights, immigrants' rights, prisoners' rights, reproductive freedom, voting rights and women's rights. The ACLU has 51 staffed affiliates operating in every state. There are strong financial, organizational and programmatic ties between the national and the affiliates, making the ACLU a truly national organization.
    The ACLU has more than 90 national and affiliate staff aftomeys, who collaborate with at least 2,000 volunteer aftomeys in handling close to 6,000 cases annually -- making the Union the largest public interest law firm in the nation. The ACLU appears before the U.S. Supreme Court more than any other organization except the U.S. Department of Justice.
    The ACLU is governed by an 83-member Board of Directors, including one representative from each affiliate, 30 at-large members elected by the affiliate and national boards, and two ex-officio members. The affiliate boards, in turn, are elected by ACLU members within their states. On a day-to-basis, each affiliate is autonomous and makes its own decisions about which cases to take and which issues to emphasize. They collaborate closely with each other and with the national office in pursuit of common goals.
    The ACLU is supported by annual dues and contributions from its members, plus grants from private foundations and individuals. The ACLU does not receive any government funding.

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