Stands for “American Civil Liberties Union”, it was a non-profit organization whose goal was to “defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the constitution and laws of the United States.” The ACLU group was founded in 1920 by Roger Baldwin. Baldwin created and shaped the goals of the group. His focus and the group’s focus was on freedom of speech, primarily for anti-war protesters. Other goals of ACLU included protecting the free speech rights of artists and striking workers, and working with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to combat racism and discrimination.
The ACLU has evolved in the years since from this small group of idealists into the nation’s premier defender of the rights enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. With more than 500,000 members, nearly 200 staff attorneys, thousands of volunteer attorneys and offices throughout the nation, the ACLU of today continues to fight government abuse and to vigorously defend individual freedoms including speech and religion, a woman’s right to choose, the right to due process, citizens’ rights to privacy and much more. The ACLU stands up for these rights even when the cause is unpopular, and sometimes when nobody else will. While not always in agreement with us on every issue, Americans have come to count on the ACLU for its unyielding dedication to principle. The ACLU has become so ingrained in American society that it is hard to imagine an America without it.
One of the ACLU’s earliest battles was the Scopes Trial of 1925. When the state of Tennessee passed a law banning the teaching of evolution, the ACLU recruited biology teacher John T. Scopes to challenge the law by teaching the banned subject in his class. When Scopes was eventually prosecuted, the ACLU partnered with celebrated attorney Clarence Darrow to defend him. Although Scopes was found guilty (the verdict was later overturned because of a sentencing error), the trial made national headlines and helped persuade the public on the importance of academic freedom.