Research & Publications

When lawmakers choose punishment and partisanship over compassion and justice, our freedom erodes and our democracy weakens. In North Carolina, the troubling trend of criminalizing constitutionally protected speech, dissent, and historically marginalized communities has created conditions in which we fail to address the root causes of inequity and instead silence the community voices that are instrumental in shaping justice-centered policies.

Rooted in Resilience: Celebrating 60 Years of the ACLU of NC Sixty years ago, a group of passionate community members came together to found the ACLU of North Carolina to defend civil rights and liberties all across the state. The 1965 “Speaker Ban” spurred this effort, which prohibited so-called “radicals” from speaking at state universities. The ACLU-NC successfully challenged the law in court as a violation of the First Amendment. At the time, there were about 300 dues-paying ACLU members in the state making up a small but mighty force in the work to protect our freedom to express ourselves.