The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) — a nonpartisan and non-profit organization — is celebrating its 90-year-history with a traveling exhibit which is currently on display at the Hartford Public Library until December 1, 2010.
Each panel of the exhibit represents an issue that the organization has addressed since its inception in 1920. The ACLU describes its purpose and the exhibit:
The organization was established in response to the notorious Palmer Raids in which the Department of Justice, led by U.S. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, began rounding up and deporting so-called radicals because of their political views without warrants and without regard to constitutional protections against unlawful search and seizure.
The exhibit includes the stories of some of the courageous people the ACLU has represented, including John Scopes, a teacher accused of violating a Tennessee state law against the teaching of evolution in the 1920s; Ozzie Powell, one of the “Scottsboro Boys” sentenced to death in Alabama in the 1930s for allegedly raping a white woman, a crime he did not commit; Mildred and Richard Loving, an interracial couple charged in the 1960s with violating the state’s “Racial Integrity Act”; and Diane Schroer, an Army veteran whose job offer by the Library of Congress was rescinded when it learned that Schroer was in the process of changing gender.
The exhibit also highlights the ACLU’s key role in the passage of major pieces of legislation, including the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, guaranteeing eligible employees with up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave for family responsibilities; the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, prohibiting discrimination based on disability in employment, public services, accommodations, transportation and technology; and the periodic reauthorizations of several provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, protecting every American’s constitutionally guaranteed right to vote.
The exhibit is located to the right of the library’s main entrance; it’s hard to miss. But, if you do miss it, there will be an event co-sponsored by the Trinity Chapter of the ACLU-CT taking place on December 2nd in the Washington Room of Mather Hall on the Trinity College campus. Juan Roberto Meléndez-Colon, who was exonerated from death row after being on it for over seventeen years, will tell his story. A question and answer session will follow his talk. The event runs from 4:30-6:30 pm and is free and open to both Trinity Students and the general public.
