American Civil Liberties Union in the 1950s and 1960s in the United States
American Civil Liberties Union in the 1950s and 1960s
In 1954 the ACLU joined the legal battle to prohibit racial segregation in public schools in the case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. The ACLU filed a friend-of-the-court-brief in support of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), which argued for the desegregation of schools. In its decision on Brown the Supreme Court struck down segregation laws, declaring that separate educational facilities were “inherently unequal” by definition.
Also during the 1950s, the organization challenged laws enacted during the Cold War period to prevent the spread of communism. The organization spearheaded a campaign to end loyalty-oath laws that required some groups of people, including public schoolteachers, to swear they were not communists in order to keep their jobs. The ACLU claimed these laws violated an individual’s right to privacy. Many people criticized the organization’s actions as being “anti-American.” The American Legion, an association of military veterans, called for a congressional investigation of the ACLU, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) started tracking the activities of the ACLU and its leaders.
The ACLU expanded its mission during the mid-1960s to help groups of people who have traditionally been denied certain rights. These groups included prisoners, people with mental illness, soldiers, racial minorities, children, the poor, women, people with disabilities, and gays and lesbians. The organization began a number of projects that resulted in new legislation. For example, the ACLU National Prison Project was created to help pass new state laws to give prisoners more legal rights. The ACLU successfully lobbied for better medical care for all prisoners and improved facilities for people with disabilities in prisons. The group also won rulings to restrict prison guards from both mentally and physically abusing prison inmates. (1)
In this Section: American Civil Liberties Union, American Civil Liberties Union Early Years, American Civil Liberties Union in the 1930S and 1940S, American Civil Liberties Union in the 1950s and 1960s, American Civil Liberties Union in the 1970s and 1980s and American Civil Liberties Union Developments.
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