The ACLU's 90th Anniversary Exhibit made a very visible and very powerful stand for civil liberties Monday, March 7, 2011, in the Montana Capitol Rotunda. Hundreds of people viewed the exhibit over the course of the day, and ACLU Washington Legislative Office Director Laura W. Murphy inspired the lunchtime crowd with her words of encouragement for the struggle for civil liberties here in Montana and in Washington, D.C.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The traveling exhibit provided an historical overview of the ACLU’s many monumental achievements since its founding in 1920.
It included the stories of some of the courageous people the ACLU has represented, including John Scopes, a teacher accused of violating a Tennessee state law against the teaching of evolution in the 1920s; Ozzie Powell, one of the “Scottsboro Boys” sentenced to death in Alabama in the 1930s for allegedly raping a white woman, a crime he did not commit; Mildred and Richard Loving, an interracial couple charged in the 1960s with violating the state’s “Racial Integrity Act”; and Diane Schroer, an Army veteran whose job offer by the Library of Congress was rescinded when it learned that Schroer was in the process of changing gender.

Other civil liberties milestones showcased in the exhibit include the ACLU’s work overcoming legal obstacles to marriage for lesbian and gay couples, defending women’s reproductive freedom, upholding free speech and privacy on the Internet and its post-9/11 work battling government secrecy, abuses of power and human rights violations.