PEORIA -- The Peoria chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union celebrated its 50th anniversary with a May 12 banquet highlighted by a lively talk from ACLU of Illinois executive director Colleen K. Connell.
The first female attorney to lead the organization, she has directed its litigation efforts involving the constitutional rights to privacy, reproductive rights and conditions in state facilities for institutionalized persons.
Connell told the group that the ACLU is really the premier conservative organization in the nation, as it seeks to support and enforce the US Constitution and its Bill of Rights, promoting free speech, freedom of religion, voting rights and other civil liberties and rights.
These rights were not enforced until the ACLU and other advocacy groups began demanding enforcement in the 1920s, she said.
In 1920, Margaret Sanger was arrested for passing out information on birth control, not condoms or other devices, she said. In East Saint Louis, IL., African Americans were lynched for political and labor organizing and attempting to vote, she said.
The ACLU was organized 90 years ago, and they and other advocacy groups demanded change, she said. It's been a long, slow slog, with backlashes from the right wing, who even today, under the guise of the Tea Party, are attacking women's right to abortion, civil rights, voting rights and gay rights. The right to privacy and freedom from wiretaps and other government scrutiny is also under seige, she said.
The Peoria chapter displayed documents from its archives, including some from an FBI file on the group from the late 1960s. "We all have FBI files," Connell said, adding the Illinois group has boxes of documents from the FBI, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.
Connell said that in previous years, the ACLU could count on the courts to protect the civil rights and liberties in the Constitution. But not now. The courts have been packed with right wing judges, she said.
That means advocacy groups must engage in grass roots efforts to sway legislators, she said.
In Illinois the death penalty has been abolished and the Civil Unions Act enacted, but efforts are under way to repeal both, she said, along with attacks on reproductive freedom.
She mentioned anti-choice legislation sent this spring to the House Agriculture Committee for review, on the theory they knew little about it. The ACLU fought back, created tshirts saying "women are not livestock," embarassing legislators. The bill was dropped, she said.
She urged the audience to work with the ACLU to shape favorable legislation so that the promise of the US Constitution is fulfilled.
An audio recording of her speech isposted here. It's worth listening to.
-- Elaine Hopkins (Full disclosure: I am secretary of the Peoria ACLU chapter.)
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