ACLU Founded

Roger Nash Baldwin felt that the NCLB was ineffectual, and wanted to establish an organization that was more militant and active. Under Baldwin’s leadership, NCLB members agreed to dissolve the NCLB and reorganize it under a new name and charter; thus the American Civil Liberties Union was created in 1920. Baldwin was the first executive director of the ACLU and served until 1950. Many of the ACLU’s original landmark cases took place under his direction, including the Scopes Trial, the Sacco and Vanzetti murder trial, and its challenge to the ban on James Joyce’s Ulysses.
In 1920, Jane Addams was a co-founder of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).