Rooted in Resilience: Rising Together

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the ACLU of North Carolina, and we’re celebrating with art, community, and history. Join us for a series of events culminating in our 60th Anniversary Hootenanny this fall. We’ll continue to keep you updated on our related projects throughout the year and how to buy tickets to the hootenanny when they become available. In the meantime, we would like to share some of our origin story as we look back at our organization’s founding.

Our History

The American Civil Liberties Union was founded in 1920 in reaction to nationwide civil rights abuses in the wake of World War I. In the years since, the organization has evolved from a small group of idealists into the nation’s premier defender of the rights enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. With nearly 2.0 million members, over 1700 employees - 500 of whom are staff attorneys and 200 working as policy and organizing experts - and offices throughout the nation, the ACLU of today continues to fight government abuse and to vigorously defend individual freedoms.

As the ACLU’s message spread across the country, individual states began to form affiliates to address civil rights issues on the state level. The North Carolina affiliate was founded in 1965 in response to a "speaker ban" imposed by the state's General Assembly in June 1963.

At the time, university campuses were frequently the sites of protests for the civil rights movement and in opposition to the Vietnam War. Some legislators were convinced that the protests were the work of communists seeking to extend their influence and power in the U.S. In response, just one day before the 1963 legislative session ended and without a committee hearing, the members almost unanimously passed a bill limiting the use of state-supported university facilities to "known members of the Communist Party," persons who are "known to advocate the overturning" of the Constitution, or who had taken the Fifth Amendment "in respect to communist or subversive connections or activities.''

The administrative heads of the university, the boards of trustees, the faculties and students, as well as a large majority of the state’s media opposed the ban and urged its repeal, but to no avail. A declaration that hundreds of professors of the Chapel Hill and Greensboro campuses might leave UNC had no apparent effect, but a warning that the university might be disaccredited by the Southern Association of College and Schools, and millions of dollars in grants consequently be lost, produced a modest change. In November 1965, a special session of the General Assembly amended the ban, directing the boards of trustees in lieu of the attorney general to regulate admission of speakers on a very restricted basis.

The following spring, a dramatic, nationally televised confrontation occurred on the Chapel Hill campus. After some student groups invited Herbert Aptheker and Frank Wilkinson to speak and the administration denied him permission to do so on the campus, almost 1,000 students gathered at the edge of the campus to hear the avowed communists address them from outside the university stone wall on Franklin Street.

Frank Wilkinson at the McCorkle Place wall, 2 March 1963, Chapel Hill, N.C.

The “speaker ban” outraged North Carolinians devoted to civil liberties. In 1965 two lawyers, James Mattocks of High Point and Charles Lambeth of Thomasville, decided to organize a state affiliate of the ACLU as a prelude to a test of the constitutionality of the speaker ban. Mattocks had been the state correspondent for the ACLU, but at the time, only the larger states had organized affiliates.

In May 1965 they convened a meeting at the University Presbyterian Church in Chapel Hill to establish the North Carolina Civil Liberties Union (now known as the ACLU of North Carolina). The fifty people from across the state who turned out elected a Board of Directors with Lambeth as its president and resolved to establish a state office in Greensboro. Committees were set up, a membership drive planned, and a campaign to strike down the speaker ban was given the highest priority.

Subsequently, student leaders decided to challenge the ban in the U.S. District Court in Greensboro. The recently formed affiliate provided counsel for the plaintiffs, with McNeill Smith, a member of its Board of Directors, as the attorney in charge. He was joined by another lawyer from his firm, Norman Smith. UNC-CH Law Professor Daniel Pollitt, another member of the Board, submitted an amicus curiae brief, and Duke Law Professor William Van Alstyne filed a brief on behalf of the American Association of University Professors. Finally, in February 1968, the court condemned the ban as an unconstitutional violation of the First and Fifth Amendments.

The ACLU of North Carolina began its life with a resounding victory. 

As the affiliate grew in numbers, Norman Smith became the part-time General Counsel and Executive Secretary, in addition to building a private law firm in Greensboro. When the legal responsibilities increased, a separate part-time Executive Secretary was hired. The affiliate formed several local chapters devoted to addressing matters of civil liberties in cities across the state, including Charlotte, Greensboro, Raleigh, Greenville, and Chapel Hill-Carrboro.

Today, the affiliate employs 29 full-time staff and boasts nearly 40,000 statewide members and supporters. As we enter our 60th year, we are prepared to face new challenges and enter a new era of advocacy. While we confront a hostile presidency and a legislature determined to strip North Carolinians of our civil rights, looking back at our history provides critical perspective.

The issue areas we champion now are unfortunately the same issues that our organization has defended since our founding. As Coretta Scott King said, “struggle is a never ending process. Freedom is never really won; you earn it and win it in every generation.”

Today’s iteration of ACLU-NC has taken up the baton in the quest for freedom and won some monumental achievements. If our predecessors were able to overcome such seemingly insurmountable odds, then there is always hope for the future.