This is one in a series of profiles marking the 60th anniversary of the ACLU of Kentucky’s founding. Each week through December 2015 we will highlight the story of one member, client, case, board or staff member that has been an integral part of our organization’s rich history.
Kate Cunningham
“I think it was Roger Baldwin who said, “The fight for civil liberties never stays won.” And that’s definitely true. We just have to be vigilant, and at least we can say that if we hadn’t been here, things would be a lot worse than they are now.” -Kate Cunningham
When Kate Cunningham became office manager for the ACLU-KY in the spring of 1971, the organization was a fraction of the size it is today, but its membership was as devoted as ever. Cunningham described how she would visit the offices of attorneys located above and below the ACLU-KY’s office whenever she needed advice on different issues. “It was very much an organization on a shoestring compared to where we are now,” she said.
When she worked on behalf of the ACLU-KY, Cunningham repeatedly faced threatening or hostile comments. At a free speech event, while giving a speech about the need to abolish the death penalty in Kentucky, Cunningham was shouted down by members of the Ku Klux Klan. “I couldn’t hear myself talk,” she explained. “We just soldiered on ‘til the end of my speech, and then I sat down and got out of there with some friends, but it was scary.”
Cunningham has been a longtime advocate for reproductive freedom, another controversial issue. She and others organized citizen lobbying in Frankfort “to oppose bills restricting abortion,” she said. “These were early days, there was the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, but as you can imagine, the Kentucky legislature had many bills before it to further restrict abortion, just as it does 40 years later.”
Cunningham left the state for about twenty years, and when she returned to Kentucky and started lobbying again, she noticed that “there is this Kabuki theatre aspect to the arguments for and against restricting abortion access. Even the players did not recognize that decades had passed and one of the players, me, had been absent!”
“Back in those days, we had an information booth at the Kentucky State Fair,” Cunningham said, describing her early involvement with the organization. “And as you can imagine, we were no more popular then than we are now. It was a drain to be out there for seven or 10 days, giving out information about the death penalty, the draft, free speech, or whatever. We went through a lot of material, but that was kind of a trial by fire. People would go by, as they do now at the reproductive choice booth, they go by and make some comment and walk on. . . . People were displeased and would let me know that they didn’t like the Civil Liberties Union or anything it stood for.”
Cunningham continues her commitment to reproductive freedom in her current position as president of Kentucky’s A Fund, an organization that raises money to help low-income women access abortion.