January 20th will be a pivotal day in U.S. history. On the day we honor the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a global human rights hero, we will also witness the inauguration of a president who has vowed to undermine so many of our most cherished civil rights and civil liberties. Just one day prior on January 19th, the ACLU will mark the 105th anniversary of our founding.
More than a century ago, the ACLU began its fight to ensure the promise of the Constitution and expand its reach to people historically denied its protections. Throughout our history, we have defended the rights and liberties in cases like Scopes, Loving, Griswold, Obergefell, Skokie and Skrmetti that have defined what it means to live in a nation committed to justice and equality.
Even as we celebrate 105 years of fighting the good fight, we are not resting on our laurels. Instead, we’re shifting into high gear; once again called to defend our nation’s civil rights and civil liberties during a most perilous time. At this critical inflection point for our nation, and our organization, we are more prepared than ever to rise to the occasion.
The fight we now confront will take all of us.
At the ACLU, our strength lies not only in our legal and advocacy expertise, or our affiliates in every state in the nation, but in the millions of card-carrying members who have animated our work throughout the last century. In the ongoing struggle for justice and equality, it’s the people who have continuously risen to reclaim power through dissent and struggle against government overreach.
With such high stakes before us, we cannot afford to be distracted by attempts to divide our movement. The intense scapegoating of advocacy groups and the fracturing across issues and communities we see today is unlike anything I’ve experienced in my 23 years leading the ACLU. For a multi-issue organization like ours, these dynamics can be particularly challenging since we cover the waterfront of civil rights and civil liberties issues. However, as an organization committed to free speech, we believe the airing of divergent viewpoints makes us stronger – even when the criticism is focused on us.
Since our founding, the ACLU has endured criticism from all sides – we are perennially accused of having moved “too far” to the left, as well as falling short of so-called progressive litmus tests. In an early critique of the ACLU published in 1923, a West Virginia newspaper detailed an outcry against the organization and its “propaganda” advancing free speech in West Virginia.
In response, we continue to draw on our organization’s history not only to inform our work, but also to put things into perspective. For example, the ACLU is nonpartisan and does not endorse or oppose political parties or candidates. But we have always engaged in political advocacy to advance civil rights and civil liberties, even from our first days. In fact, the original charity organization that was chartered in 1920 was our political arm, a 501(c)(4), and the largest line item in our first budget was, indeed, for “propaganda.” The tax-deductible 501(c)(3), ACLU Foundation, was not formed until decades later.
From the Palmer Raids to the Red Scare, to the House Un-American Activities Committee to the war on terror, to the first Trump administration — our history provides us with good and bad lessons for our future work. Our history reminds us that when immigrants are scapegoated, critics are silenced, or the government deploys the immensity of its resources to target its perceived political enemies, everyone ends up losing.
Drawing on our experience during the last century, we know our most fundamental rights and freedoms will soon be challenged in unprecedented ways. But we are more prepared than ever to fulfill our core mission to defend the rights and liberties granted to all of us by the Constitution. At the state and local level, ACLU affiliates will work to build a firewall for freedom, leveraging the powers of state and local governments to defend rights and liberties. We will also mobilize our members and volunteers to join the fight to uphold our rights and defend those being targeted.
We will turn to the courts as we have so often done in our 105-year history. We will fight any effort to repeal birthright citizenship. We will bring Fourth and Fifth Amendment challenges to mass deportations. We will resist attempts to send federal agents or military forces to quell peaceful protests or interfere with journalists reporting on them. We will stand with the transgender community and their families, arguing that they deserve equal protection of the law against discrimination and prejudice.
Although today’s ACLU may be the largest and strongest in our 105 years, we must not forget that the resources of the Trump administration and the federal government dwarf us by comparison. We remain the David to the government’s Goliath.
In the years ahead, our wins will certainly be hard fought and far from guaranteed. We are clear-eyed about what is ahead of us and recognize that, despite our best efforts and intentions, sometimes we may fall short. If we want to create a more perfect union, we must all recommit to the struggle for justice, fairness, and equality. What better time to do this than on the ACLU’s 105th anniversary.
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