2020-04-05
A history of the organization that has fought to protect the Bill of Rights for the past century.
In 1919, in the aftermath of World War I, “xenophobia, racism, and the war between management and labor” erupted violently, leading to the founding of the American Civil Liberties Union the next year. Dedicated to championing “in the highest courts the civil liberties of persons and organizations,” the ACLU has been involved in labor’s right to “picket, boycott, and strike”; Vietnam War dissent; civil rights infringements; women’s rights (in 1972, the organization tapped Ruth Bader Ginsburg to head its Women’s Rights Project); and suing on behalf of mental patients, the disabled, and prisoners, among many other issues involving its core mission to protect democratic freedoms. Cose, chairman of the editorial board of the New York Daily News and contributor to USA Today, Newsweek, and Time, draws on ACLU archives, interviews, and published sources to offer a thorough, balanced recounting of the organization’s often turbulent century. Throughout its history, it participated in some celebrated cases—e.g., the Scopes trial, testing Tennessee’s prohibition of the teaching of evolution; and the trial of the so-called Scottsboro boys, nine black youths charged with raping two white girls on a freight train in Alabama. The ACLU helped NAACP lawyers prep for arguments in Brown v. Board of Education but was otherwise not directly involved; in the 1960s, writes the author, “it had rarely been on the front lines” of racial issues. The Trump era has energized an organization pledged to remain nonpartisan. “As of early 2019,” writes Cose, “the ACLU had initiated 186 legal actions against the Trump administration, including 92 lawsuits.” In the 2018 midterms, it supported many ballot initiatives (and candidates) that had an impact on civil liberties. Cose traces the ACLU’s growth, management challenges, and philosophical conflicts, through which the organization has maintained itself as a strong defender of democracy.
A well-researched chronicle of democratic activism.
"Narrator Danny Campbell's deep, somewhat raspy voice is a plus. His informal style makes the audiobook more accessible, and his voice projects well, which adds emphasis to his performance."
—AudioFile Magazine
“A well-researched chronicle of democratic activism.”—Kirkus Reviews
“Comprehensive and even-handed . . . this judicious account reveals just how integral the ACLU has been to the past century of American history.”—Publishers Weekly
"Cose’s book is an excellent choice for anyone seeking to understand the ACLU as an organization and for those wanting to explore how the fight for civil liberties has evolved and helped to shape the society we have today."—Library Journal
"This brisk, sometimes breathless history provides a helpful introduction to these important issues."—Booklist
“The dramatic, turbulent, colorful, controversial, and, in many cases, little-known story of how the ACLU responded to the urgent need to defend the Constitution and how it has persisted in that mission for the last hundred years is told in an engaging new book by Ellis Cose entitled Democracy, If We Can Keep It: The ACLU’s 100-Year Fight for Rights in America.”—Stephen Rohde, Los Angeles Review of Books
"Ellis Cose’s extraordinary exploration of the ACLU’s century of work is a timely and timeless read for all stewards of social justice."—Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation
"Ellis Cose’s elegant, masterly history of the ACLU is also a report on our country’s chronic autoimmune disorder, in which the system risks its own health in the act of ‘saving ’ itself. One comes away from this unflinching account with the urgent sense that there are no simple diagnoses or cures, that democracy is an organism in a constant cycle of decay and repair—and that survival is not inevitable."—Diane McWhorter, Pulitzer Prize–winning author, Carry Me Home
"Over the last century, it’s astonishing how closely the history of the ACLU tracks with the history of the United States. It’s all here in Ellis Cose’s brisk, compelling, and urgent account of a vital champion of democracy."—Jonathan Alter, author, His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, a Life
"Ellis Cose tells the story of the women and men who fought back when political speech became an imprisonable offense, when state and local authorities enabled violent mobs, and when courts ruled against peaceful protests and strikes—offering hard-boiled hope that we can transcend today’s tyranny too."—Elizabeth Green, co-founder and CEO, Chalkbeat
"In this engaging and important book, Ellis Cose tells the story of the ACLU’s century-long commitment to ensuring that America obeys its own laws."—Richard Smith, president, Pinkerton Foundation, former CEO and editor of Newsweek magazine
"For anyone who is concerned about the decline of civil liberties and seeks to understand the magnitude of what is at risk, this book is an essential read."—Calvin Sims, president, International House, and former New York Times foreign correspondent
"There are no easy answers for a democracy in troubled times, but if we are to ‘keep it,’ we surely need the nuance, honesty, intelligence, and memory that this book offers."—Jerry Kang, inaugural vice chancellor for equity, diversity, and inclusion, and distinguished professor of law and Asian American studies, UCLA
"More than a history of the ACLU, Ellis Cose has written a concise history of the United States in the twentieth century as seen through the prism of the fundamental rights that it claims, and so often fails, to uphold."—Carroll Bogert, president, the Marshall Project
