A Bond Forged in Struggle: The American Civil Liberties Union's Historic Alliance with African-Americans in the Quest for Racial Justice

Report: A Bond Forged in Struggle

On the launch of his groundbreaking 1903 treatise The Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B. DuBois famously remarked that “the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line.” There is no doubt that his words rang true then; yet at the dawn of the twenty-first century, the persistence of that line became undeniably apparent in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

The ACLU’s ground-breaking report, A Bond Forged in Struggle: The American Civil Liberties Union’s Historic Alliance with African-Americans in the Quest for Racial Justice, recounts an ongoing history of efforts seeking racial equality in America. The ACLU’s decades-long racial justice docket has included victories in many important areas, from discrimination in housing, education and access to public services, to racial profiling and prisoners’ rights. Significant progress has been made, to be sure. But after Katrina’s rains subsided, no one could deny that there was still much left to be done.

READ MORE
> A Bond Forged in Struggle: The Complete Report
> Abandoned & Abused: Orleans Parish Prisoners in the Wake of Hurricane Katrina
> Hurricane Katrina and the ACLU
> Affirmative Action Mythbusters: A Project of the African-American Policy Forum (off-site)
> Custody & Control: Conditions of Confinement in New York’s Juvenile Prison System
> VotingRights.org
> Democracy’s Ghosts: How 5 Million Americans Have Lost the Right to Vote

PODCASTS
> Former ACLU client Alondra Jones talks about her participation in the landmark educational equity case Williams v. California
> Trevoy Ross of the ACLU’s Detroit affiliate talks about racial profiling
> Chris Goodman of the Baltimore Algebra Project discusses equality in education