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Happy 98th birthday, the ACLU.
The ACLU was founded on this day 98 years ago.
We've been fighting for civil rights and civil liberties for nearly a century, and we won't stop now.
Link to tweet
American Civil Liberties Union
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Early years
CLB era
The ACLU developed from the National Civil Liberties Bureau (CLB), co-founded in 1917 during World War I by Crystal Eastman, an attorney activist, and Roger Nash Baldwin. The focus of the CLB was on freedom of speech, primarily anti-war speech, and on supporting conscientious objectors who did not want to serve in World War I.
Three United States Supreme Court decisions in 1919 each upheld convictions under laws against certain kinds of anti-war speech. In 1919, the Court upheld the conviction of Socialist Party leader Charles Schenck for publishing anti-war literature. In Debs v. United States, the court upheld the conviction of Eugene Debs. While the Court upheld a conviction a third time in Abrams v. United States, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote an important dissent which has gradually been absorbed as an American principle: he urged the court to treat freedom of speech as a fundamental right, which should rarely be restricted.
In 1918 Crystal Eastman resigned from the organization due to health issues. After assuming sole leadership of the CLB, Baldwin insisted that the organization be reorganized. He wanted to change its focus from litigation to direct action and public education.
The CLB directors concurred, and on January 19, 1920, they formed an organization under a new name, the American Civil Liberties Union. Although a handful of other organizations in the United States at that time focused on civil rights, such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the ACLU was the first that did not represent a particular group of persons, or a single theme. Like the CLB, the NAACP pursued litigation to work on civil rights, including efforts to overturn the disfranchisement of African Americans in the South that had taken place since the turn of the century.
....
Early years
CLB era
The ACLU developed from the National Civil Liberties Bureau (CLB), co-founded in 1917 during World War I by Crystal Eastman, an attorney activist, and Roger Nash Baldwin. The focus of the CLB was on freedom of speech, primarily anti-war speech, and on supporting conscientious objectors who did not want to serve in World War I.
Three United States Supreme Court decisions in 1919 each upheld convictions under laws against certain kinds of anti-war speech. In 1919, the Court upheld the conviction of Socialist Party leader Charles Schenck for publishing anti-war literature. In Debs v. United States, the court upheld the conviction of Eugene Debs. While the Court upheld a conviction a third time in Abrams v. United States, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote an important dissent which has gradually been absorbed as an American principle: he urged the court to treat freedom of speech as a fundamental right, which should rarely be restricted.
In 1918 Crystal Eastman resigned from the organization due to health issues. After assuming sole leadership of the CLB, Baldwin insisted that the organization be reorganized. He wanted to change its focus from litigation to direct action and public education.
The CLB directors concurred, and on January 19, 1920, they formed an organization under a new name, the American Civil Liberties Union. Although a handful of other organizations in the United States at that time focused on civil rights, such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the ACLU was the first that did not represent a particular group of persons, or a single theme. Like the CLB, the NAACP pursued litigation to work on civil rights, including efforts to overturn the disfranchisement of African Americans in the South that had taken place since the turn of the century.