TEST About Us

The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio is headquartered at the Max Wohl Civil Liberties Center in Cleveland. The organization also maintains regional offices in Columbus and Cincinnati.

Utilizing integrated advocacy that cuts across litigation, policy analysis and advocacy, lobbying, community organizing, and public education, the ACLU of Ohio seeks to preserve civil liberties and advance civil rights for each new generation.

The ACLU of Ohio is an affiliate of the national ACLU. Founded in 1920, the national ACLU includes more than 1.5 million members in all 50 states, making it our country's foremost advocate of individual rights. The ACLU of Ohio, governed by a 24-member board of directors, has nearly 30,000 members and supporters statewide, in all of Ohio’s 88 counties.

We are supported by annual dues and contributions from supporters, as well as grants from private foundations. We do not receive any government funding.

Because the ACLU has a limited budget and staff, it is impossible to represent every person whose civil liberties have been violated. Instead, the organization tries to select cases which will impact the greatest number of people -- those cases which have the potential to break new ground or establish new precedents to strengthen our freedoms.

Resources

Union/Foundation: What is the Difference?
Active Civil Liberties Leaders in Ohio
In Memory: Tributes to Past Civil Liberties Leaders

1920-1935

Roger Baldwin Visits Youngstown to meet members of Youngstown Workers Defense League

In 1920, Roger Baldwin, founder of the national ACLU, traveled throughout the U.S. in search of civil libertarians willing to join his fight for civil rights. Baldwin met with members of a local Youngstown group called the Youngstown Workers Defense League, which led to the Youngstown chapter becoming one of the fifteen original ACLU affiliates in 1921.

ACLU of Ohio is established

The first chapters consisted of a handful of dedicated members who utilized their own resources and contributed their time, telephones, offices, houses, and personal funds to the organization. For the first few decades the chapters acted primarily as liaisons to bring local civil rights problems to the attention of the national ACLU.
The newly-established ACLU of Youngstown quickly made the ACLU a household name through its defense of the controversial groups the Communist Party USA and the Ku Klux Klan. From its inception, the Youngstown chapter followed its creed of defending the Bill of Rights, even for unpopular groups.

Cleveland and Cincinnati join the fight

The ACLU's presence in Ohio was further expanded when affiliates in Cleveland and Cincinnati joined Youngstown in 1922, becoming involved in highly controversial cases born out of the growing threat of communism. The Ohio League for Constitutional Rights in Columbus joined forces with the three Ohio affiliates in 1935, working in cooperation with the ACLU on issues of censorship, teachers' rights to political activity, free speech, and other rights guaranteed by Constitutional law.

1950's

McCarthyism hits Ohio

McCarthyism in the 1950's saw an upsurge in the activity of civil libertarians across Ohio, and chapters in Yellow Springs, Akron, Oberlin, Toledo, and Dayton were established. The existing chapters in Cleveland, Columbus, and Youngstown were resurrected and the statewide ACLU of Ohio was born, led by Dr. Edwin Brown (executive director), Jack Day, Oscar Steiner, and James Paradise.

1960-present

We're not going anywhere

The ACLU of Ohio continued to grow in the following years, gradually taking the shape of the statewide organization it is today. For a more detailed history of the early years of the ACLU of Ohio, download A History of ACLU in Ohio by Betsy Leis below.