Format: VHS Tape
73,324% Sales Rank in Video: 143 (was 104,997 yesterday) (Visit the Movers & Shakers in Video list for authoritative information on this product's current rank.)
Review & Description
This program, with commentary from Oliver North, Dave Barry, and Molly Ivins, traces the tumultuous history of the ACLU from its inception by founder Roger Baldwin, through dozens of legal challenges over the past century, including the Scopes trial, the 1930s labor strikes, Japanese internment, the HUAC hearings and blacklisting, the Vietnam war crimes trials, the American Nazi Party's bid to march in Skokie, Illinois, and others. Baldwin's story is interwoven throughout. The American Civil Liberties Union (A.C.L.U.) is one of America's oldest and largest non-governmental civil rights organizations. The fact that civil rights are written down in the Constitution does not guarantee their observance. Only systematic lawsuits by organizations such as the A.C.L.U. have resulted in tremendous change in that regard, a rights revolution. The film by Hott and Garey tells the story of numerous court cases in which the A.C.L.U. acted on behalf of individual and political rights. They included the monkey trial, for the right to teach the theory of evolution in biology classes despite its contradiction with the strict reading of the Bible or the Skokie case regarding the American Nazi Party's right to organize a march through a Jewish-majority neighbourhood. These examples show A.C.L.U.'s activities are often extremely controversial; membership cards were turned in en masse after the Skokie case. The organization's stormy history is described without embellishment or simplification in a complex and fascinating political context. There is only one simple A.C.L.U. principle: treat the civil rights contained in the U.S. Constitution, especially the First Amendment, absolutely seriously. Read more
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