Home » About » Newsletters » February 2000
ACLU of Florida Annual Report: 80 Years Old and Still Going Strong
On January 19, The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the nation's oldest and largest civil liberties organization, turned 80 years old.
We have come a long way from our modest beginning in 1920, when a roomful of activists, including Roger Baldwin, Crystal Eastman, Helen Keller, Albert De Silver and a few others, banded together to organize the nationwide defense of the Bill of Rights.
At the time of its founding, peace activists were languishing in jail for distributing anti-war literature, foreign-born residents suspected of political radicalism were subject to summary deportations, racial segregation was the law of the land, sex discrimination was firmly institutionalized and the U.S. Supreme Court had yet to uphold a single free speech claim under the First Amendment.
The ACLU immediately set to work, and in the following 80 years our success can be measured in some of the landmark cases that define freedom in America. From the defense of public schoolteacher John Scopes for teaching evolution, to the fight against the U.S. Customs Service's effort to ban James Joyce's Ulysses, to the ending of legalized racial segregation, to the securing of women's right to abortion, the ACLU has been involved in every major civil rights and civil liberties struggle for nearly a century.
We are also celebrating other milestones this year. In Florida, prominent citizens like Marjorie Stoneman Douglas, Jack Gordon and Richard Wolfson helped found the Greater Miami Chapter of the ACLU in 1955. Some of the issues of concern that spurred them to action were censorship in the public libraries, religious indoctrination in our public schools, and questions of abuse by Florida law enforcement. Ten years later, the ACLU of Florida was born.
The success of the Florida Affiliate can be seen in the landmark actions brought on behalf of the citizens of our state. We were involved in defending protesters who demonstrated against a segregated restaurant, successfully supported the rights of worship of the Santeria religious sect in a case that went to the U.S. Supreme Court, and fought to end police harassment of Miami's homeless citizens.
Since 1920, the ACLU has grown to more than 300,000 members nationwide and more than 10,000 in Florida. We are able to carry on the legacy of our founders because of the strong support we receive from our members - including those members who also make generous tax-deductible contributions to the ACLU Foundation of Florida.
Today, we are more active than ever in supporting the protection of individual rights. From the National case ACLU v. Reno, which was successful in preventing government censorship of the Internet, to the current lawsuit brought by the ACLU of Florida and other allies to stop Florida's use of tax dollars to fund vouchers for religious schools, the ACLU continues to be at the forefront of freedom.
Not a bad record for an 80 year old.
