News & Commentary

“The courts, the streets, and passing laws, those are three key prongs of changing things for the better–not only in this country, but in the world. If we have those rights, we can change wrongs if we can just get enough people on our side.” -Bill Allison ACLU of Kentucky cooperating attorney Bill Allison started his law career with the Southern Conference Educational Fund (SCEF), an organization closely connected with Carl and Anne Braden. SCEF was a Southern civil ri

There is a national pattern of police using excessive, and sometimes fatal, force against people of color, often during routine encounters. Frequently, the police officers, and the departments they work for, are not held accountable for their actions.

“He protected the best tradition of Americanism.” -Cary Robertson on Louis Lusky, November 1956. Before he became known as a pioneer in civil rights law, and before his more than 20 years teaching at Columbia Law School, Louisville native Louis Lusky was working on some of the Kentucky Civil Liberty Union’s (now ACLU of Kentucky) earliest cases. In 1954, Louisvillian

Julia Allen, William F. Billingsley, Norbert Blume, Joseph Freeland, Patrick Kirwan, Louis Kesselman, Arthur Kling, Louis Lusky, Rev. Wilfred Myll, Maie Perley, Maurice Rabb, M.D., Georgia Schneider, Lee Thomas, Jr., Edgar A. Zingman “I had forgotten how forceful [members of the ACLU-KY] were. I cannot mention them all nor can I describe the intensity of their fidelity to the goal of the KCLU."– F.W. Woolsey, ACLU Historian, 1995 The ACLU of Kentucky (originally the Kentucky Civil Liberties Union or KCLU) was formed in the wake of the Red Scare in the United Sta