Is the ACLU Selling Out?

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The ACLU did not see black rights as part of their struggle for civil liberties. They really thought that their mission was to take care of the labor problem and if they were successful in doing that, the race problem would take care of itself. This all seems to point to this constant conundrum for the ACLU: While the left needs this majoritarian state to protect worker power,. The left is often in the minority and persecuted.

Featuring Laura Weinrib on The Taming of Free Speech: America’s Civil Liberties Compromise. Did you know that the ACLU was founded as a radical labor organization allied with the IWW? Weinrib traces the rise of the modern civil liberties movement, and modern constitutional liberalism more broadly, from World War I through the New Deal. She explains how the ACLU went from defending free speech as a means to revolutionary ends to a liberal position exalting free speech as an end unto itself—including the anti-union speech of bosses and the political speech of corporations. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Check out Atomic Days: The Untold Story of the Most Toxic Place in America by Joshua Frank haymarketbooks.org/books/1940-atomic-days Abolishing State Violence: A World Beyond Bombs, Borders, and Cages by Ray Acheson haymarketbooks.org/books/1883-abolishing-state-violence