What Is the ACLU?
In the years following World War I, America was gripped by the fear that the Communist Revolution in Russia would spread to the USA. As is often the case when fear outweighs rational debate, civil liberties paid the price. In Nov. 1919 and Jan. 1920, then Attorney General Mitchell Palmer began rounding up and deporting so-called radicals in the so called “Palmer Raids,”. Thousands were arrested without warrants and without regard to constitutional protections against unlawful search and seizure. Those arrested were brutally treated and held in horrible conditions.
In the face of these egregious civil liberties abuses, a small group of people decided to take a stand, and thus was born the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU has evolved from this small group of idealists into the nation’s premier defender of the rights enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. It continues to fight government abuse and to 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. [Excerpted from aclu.org, June 2026]
The ACLU stands up for these rights even when the cause is unpopular, and sometimes when nobody else will.
Download the official ACLU “rights card”. a cut and fold Know Your Rights card that provides tips for interacting with police and understanding your legal rights if you are stopped by police, immigration agents or the FBI.
Immigrants’ Rights
Regardless of status, immigrants have rights guaranteed under the Constitution.
Women’s Rights
Once again Women’s Rights are under attack–right enshrined in our laws for many years are again under challenge.
1873: “It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union. And we formed it, not to give the blessings of liberty, but to secure them; not to the half of ourselves and the half of our posterity, but to the whole people – women as well as men. And it is a downright mockery to talk to women of their enjoyment of the blessings of liberty while they are denied the use of the only means of securing them provided by this democratic-republican government – the ballot.” – Susan B. Anthony
Protest Rights
The ACLU list of protest rights.
