January
Jan 1
1863

President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation Takes Effect

 
1895

J. Edgar Hoover, Longtime Head of FBI, is Born

 
1918

Condoms for Troops in WW I

 
1919

Suffragists Stage First “Watch Fire” Demonstration in Front of White House

 
1962

Illinois Repeals Sodomy Law

 
1967

Before Stonewall: LA Police Raid Black Cat, Gay Bar

 
1975

President Ford Signs Privacy Act

 
1975

Top Nixon Administration Officials Convicted of Watergate Conspiracy

Jan 2
1920

Red Scare: The Second and Larger “Palmer Raids” Brings Massive Violations of Civil Liberties

 
1921

California, Oregon Only States without “Sunday” Laws

 
1939

Frank Murphy, Civil Libertarian, Appointed Attorney General

 
1952

It “Shocks the Conscience:” Police Forcibly Pump Suspect’s Stomach

 
1962

Weavers Refuse to Sign Loyalty Oath – Are Banned by NBC

 
1970

Court Rules Punitive Draft Reclassification of Vietnam War Protesters Illegal

 
1975

Walter Washington Sworn in as First Popularly Elected Mayor of Washington, D.C.

 
2006

Frank Wilkinson, Anti-HUAC Activist, Dies

 
2012

Gordon Hirabayashi, Japanese-American Hero, Dies at 93

Jan 3
1939

HUAC: ACLU A Communist “Front Organization”

 
1945

HUAC Made a Permanent Committee – Assault on Freedom of Belief and Association Continues

 
1955

Civil Service Reports on Impact of Federal Loyalty Program

 
1971

“A Woman’s Place is in the House — The House of Representatives”

 
1975

Japanese-American Internment Victim Elected to Congress

 
1991

Eleanor Holmes Norton Becomes Member of the House as Delegate For the District of Columbia

Jan 4
1883

Max Eastman, Editor of Anti-World War I “Masses,” Born

 
1937

First Amendment Victory in “De Jonge v. Oregon”

 
1956

Senate Subcommittee Investigates The New York Times for Alleged Communist Influence

 
1965

Free Speech Movement Hold First “Legal” Rally

 
1975

Native-American Tribal Self-Determination Reaffirmed

 
1975

President Ford Appoints Rockefeller Commission to Investigate CIA Abuses

 
1982

“Gay Men Certainly Have a Health Crisis.” Larry Kramer: “That’s Our Name!”

Jan 5
1935

Customs Admits Some Birth Control Material, Bans Others

 
1948

Kinsey Report on Male Sexual Behavior Published

 
1953

“Whom Shall We Welcome?” President Truman Endorses Immigration Reform Report

 
1964

FBI Installs First “Bug” in Martin Luther King’s Hotel Room

 
1968

CIA Sends President Johnson Third Report on Student Dissent

 
1968

Dr. Spock, Four Others, Indicted for Anti-War Conspiracy

 
1982

Coalition Challenges Arkansas Creation Science Law

 
2010

HHS, CDC Remove HIV from List that Bars Visas

Jan 6
1915

Don Edwards, “Rights Champion” in Congress, is Born

 
1941

FDR Delivers Famous Four Freedoms Speech

 
1959

Mildred and Richard Loving Plead Guilty – To Being Married

 
1983

“Moment of Silence” Causes Uproar in New Jersey Schools

 
1987

“Visa War:” Documentary Film Attacks Reagan Administration on Free Trade in Ideas

 
1988

Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” Will Not Be Broadcast

 
2016

Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore Suspended – Told Lower State Courts to Disregard U.S Supreme Court on Same-Sex Marriages

Jan 7
1918

Supreme Court Rules Draft Does Not Violate 13th Amendment

 
1948

President Truman Promises Civil Rights Message

 
1963

ACLU Protests Senate Investigation of Pacifica Radio

 
1969

Governor Reagan: Drive “Anarchists” and “Latter Day Fascists” Off California Campuses

 
1974

Free Exercise of Religion Protects Sikh Solider Wearing Turban

 
1990

Ed Ennis Dies; Fought Japanese-American Evacuation

 
2002

Amnesty International Warns Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld About “Cruel, Inhumane, or Degrading” Punishments

 
2011

Congress Blocks Closing of Guantanamo Bay Detention Center

Jan 8
1945

Supreme Court Strikes Down Texas Restriction on Labor Union Organizing

 
1950

Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Organized

 
1964

FBI’s William C. Sullivan Proposes Bureau Promote “A New Negro Leader”

 
1969

Girls Can Wear Pants to School !

 
1993

Gay Group Gets Permit for St. Patrick’s Day Parade

Jan 9
1918

President Wilson Finally Supports Women’s Right to Vote

 
1940

ABA House of Delegates Calls for Defense of Civil Liberties

 
1948

Hollywood Ten Arraigned for Contempt of Congress

 
1950

Attorney General McGrath Defends FBI Wiretapping

 
1961

Charlayne Hunter and Hamilton Holmes, First African-Americans to Enroll at University of Georgia

 
1967

Civil Rights Leader Julian Bond Sworn in as Georgia State Legislator

 
1975

President Ford Creates National Commission for International Women’s Year

 
1996

Group Urges Ban on Internet “Hate Speech”

 
2002

John Yoo: Bush Administration Can Ignore Geneva Conventions

Jan 10
1917

Alice Paul Begins Picketing White House Again for Women’s Suffrage

 
1939

Hearings on Frankfurter Nomination for Supreme Court Degenerate into Farce

 
1991

Forced Contraception Challenged

 
1998

New Jersey “Taking [the] Lead” in Providing Court Translators

Jan 11
1885

Alice Paul, Suffragist Leader, Equal Rights Advocate, is Born

 
1920

German Officials Slander African-American Troops

 
1936

Tulsa Bans Play “Tobacco Road”

 
1937

ACLU Sponsors Poster Contest to Mark 150th Anniversary of the Constitution

 
1944

FDR Calls for a Second Bill of Rights

 
1954

First Latino Lawyers Argue Before Supreme Court

 
2002

Guantanamo Bay Detention Center Opens – Abuses Follow

 
2002

State Department Lawyer Protests Bush Administration War on Terror Policies

 
2021

Police Reform Works ! Newark Police Officers Fire No Shots in 2020

Jan 12
1930

ACLU Demands Inquiry into Missing Files in Dismissed Birth Control and Censorship Cases

 
1948

Supreme Court Requires Oklahoma to Provide Equal Law School Opportunity for African-Americans

 
1956

Erotica Publisher Samuel Roth is Convicted of Obscenity, Heads to Supreme Court

 
1971

First Abortion Case Is Argued Before U.S. Supreme Court

 
2017

President Obama Creates Two New Civil Rights National Monuments

Jan 13
1927

First Woman Seated on New York Stock Exchange

 
1952

Cold War: “The Black Silence of Fear”

 
1958

Supreme Court Ends Post Office Ban on Homosexual Materials

 
1988

Supreme Court Denies High School Newspapers Full First Amendment Rights

 
1990

Douglas Wilder Becomes First Elected African-American Governor

 
2004

Abu Ghraib Prison Scandal Begins

Jan 14
1922

Academic Freedom Commission Advocates Restrictions on Professors’ Speech !!

 
1941

A. Philip Randolph Calls For a March on Washington

 
1963

Governor George Wallace: “Segregation Now, Segregation Tomorrow, Segregation Forever”

 
1975

Edward Levi Named Attorney General – Will Chart Independent Course

 
1975

HUAC Abolished; 37 Years of Civil Liberties Violations Finally Ends

Jan 15
1919

National Civil Liberties Bureau Condemns Deportation and Exclusion Laws

 
1927

Scopes Conviction is Overturned

 
1929

Martin Luther King, Jr. is Born

 
1957

NYC Bar Association Urges Curbs on Wiretapping

 
1965

LBJ Calls Martin Luther King – Plan Voting Rights Strategy

 
1967

Let’s Spend “Some Time” Together – Rolling Stones Censor Themselves on Ed Sullivan Show

 
1968

“Sisterhood is Powerful”: Women’s March for Equality Led by 87-year old Jeannette Rankin

 
1970

Army Spying on Americans Exposed

 
1971

National Press Club Admits Women Reporters

Jan 16
1920

Prohibition Begins – Civil Liberties Abuses Follow

 
1941

War Department Creates Tuskegee Airmen

 
1951

Hawaii Judge Acquits Three of Contempt of Congress for Claiming the Fifth Amendment Before HUAC

 
1960

Justice Department: Nazi “Hate Speech” Protected by First Amendment

 
1981

ACLU’s Roger Baldwin and Earl Warren Awarded Medal of Freedom

Jan 17
1953

A Truly Free Press: First Issue of I.F. Stone’s Weekly Published

 
1957

Defund HUAC Urges ACLU of Northern California

 
1958

61 Chicago-area Notables Call for Abolition of HUAC

 
1972

Surgeon General Report Cites Danger of TV Violence

 
1973

Ruth Bader Ginsburg Argues Her First Case Before Supreme Court

 
1986

President Reagan Signs Secret “Finding,” Authorizing Illegal Arms Sale to Iran

 
1996

Barbara Jordan Dies; Feminist, Texas Civil Rights Advocate

Jan 18
1937

Mary McLeod Bethune Delivers Report on Negro Youth to FDR

 
1939

Birth Control Federation Founded; Later Renamed Planned Parenthood

 
1940

Frank Murphy, Civil Libertarian, Joins Supreme Court

 
1943

William H. Hastie Resigns as War Dept. Aide Over Continued Segregation of Military

 
1966

Robert C. Weaver Sworn in as First African-American Cabinet Member

 
1968

African-American Jazz Singer Eartha Kitt Confronts LBJ at White House Over Vietnam

 
1977

Indiana the Last State to Ratify the ERA for Women’s Rights

 
2002

President Bush Declares Guantanamo Bay Detainees Not Prisoners of War

Jan 19
1920

ACLU Founded – Fight For Civil Liberties Begins

 
1926

National Woman’s Party Protests Exclusion From Conference on Protective Legislation for Women

 
1953

“Lucy Goes to the Hospital” – Just Doesn’t Say Why

 
1956

“Dragnet” Episode Attacks CA Supreme Court Exclusionary Rule Decision

 
1956

Estimates 750,000 Illegal Abortions a Year in U.S.

 
1962

RFK Memo on Cuba Demands Action to Remove Castro

 
2020

ACLU Celebrates 100th Birthday !!

Jan 20
1939

Felix Frankfurter Joins Supreme Court

 
1940

Mayor La Guardia: “Arrest Punks, Pimps, Racketeers and Gangsters on Vagrancy Charges”

 
1953

Eisenhower Breaks Precedent: Begins Inaugural Address with a Prayer

 
1953

No “Leftist” Music at the Inaugural

 
1955

Sit-ins Integrate Baltimore Lunch Counters at Read’s Stores

 
1960

Danny Escobedo Arrested for Murder

 
1960

Hollywood Blacklist Broken – Producer Otto Preminger Credits Dalton Trumbo for “Exodus” Script

 
1966

Stewardess Judith Evenson Challenges Northwest Airlines’ “No Marriage” Policy

 
2018

Second Annual Women’s March Draws Crowds in U.S., Around the World

Jan 21
1884

Roger Baldwin, Founder of the ACLU, is Born

 
1919

NY Lusk Committee Seeks to Drive Out “Red Periodicals”

 
1950

“Fear Obscures Reason,” Justice Hugo Black Warns of Cold War Hysteria

 
1953

And When He was Good . . . . : Herbert Brownell, Jr., Becomes Attorney General

 
1975

Women Cannot be Excluded From Jury Duty: “Taylor v. Louisiana”

 
1977

President Carter Pardons Vietnam War Protesters

 
2008

John Lewis Returns to Scene of 1961 Freedom Ride Beating; Reconciles with Attacker

 
2017

Women’s March Draws Millions World-Wide to Protest Trump

Jan 22
1919

Senate Investigation Attacks Liberals, Pacifists, Radicals

 
1920

Civil Liberties Bureau: WWI Conscientious Objectors Tortured in Military Prison

 
1953

“The Crucible” Opens in New York; Playwright Arthur Miller’s Cold War Statement

 
1958

Spy vs. Spy: FBI Stumbles Onto Illegal CIA Domestic Mail Cover Program

 
1971

Congressional Black Caucus Boycotts President Nixon’s State of the Union Address

 
1973

A Constitutional Right to an Abortion: “Roe v. Wade”

 
1976

Supreme Court Rejects Injunctions Against Police Misconduct

 
1993

President Bill Clinton Rescinds Anti-Abortion “Mexico City Policy”

 
2001

President George W. Bush Restores Mexico City Policy

 
2009

President Obama Bans Torture

 
2009

President Obama Orders Closing of Guantanamo Bay

Jan 23
1934

ACLU Attorney A. L. Wirin Kidnapped, Beaten in California

 
1939

Ed Roberts, Disability Rights Pioneer, is Born

 
1964

The Federal Poll Tax Is Abolished

 
1967

Georgia’s Jury System Declared Discriminatory

 
1967

Members of Allegedly “Seditious” Groups Can Teach in New York

 
2003

American Library Association Adopts Advisory on Government Snooping

 
2018

North Carolina Prisons End Ban on Best-Selling “Mass Incarceration” Book

Jan 24
1956

Restrictive Hollywood Code, Under Attack, To Be Re-Examined

 
1960

A. Philip Randolph Calls for Mass Movement; Sit-Ins Begin a Week Later

 
1969

New Jersey Prosecutor Threatens Arrests Over John Lennon/Yoko One Album “Two Virgins”

 
1978

President Carter Imposes Stricter Controls on CIA

 
1993

Civil Rights Giant Thurgood Marshall Dies

 
2013

Pentagon Approves Women in Combat

Jan 25
1950

Senate Approves Equal Rights Amendment for Women by Vote of 63-19

 
1961

Controversy Sparked Over “Managed News” by the Kennedy Administration

 
1972

Shirley Chisholm: First African-American Woman to Campaign for Presidential Nomination

 
2002

White House Counsel To Bush: Geneva Conventions Do Not Apply

 
2016

Longest-Ever Picket of White House (30+ Years) Ends; Concepcion Picciotto Dies

Jan 26
1922

A Brief Moment of Hope for a Federal Anti-Lynching Bill

 
1939

New York State Bar Association Creates Civil Liberties Committee

 
1951

No Liberal Magazines for Los Angeles Students

 
1956

Martin Luther King’s First Arrest

 
1961

California Loyalty Oath for Organizations Using School Facilities Struck Down

 
1962

Catholic Bishop Bans The Twist

 
2017

Sales of Orwell’s “1984” Soar in Response to Trump Presidency

Jan 27
1941

California Creates Un-American Activities Committee

 
1961

Activist Frank Kameny Brings First Gay Rights Case to the Supreme Court

 
1968

Chicago Subways and Elevated to Carry Anti-Vietnam War Ads

 
1972

Notorious GEMSTONE Meeting in Attorney General’s Office: Illegal Activities Planned

 
1975

Edward Levi Promises to be Independent U.S. Attorney General

 
1975

Senate Creates Church Committee to Investigate Abuses by Intelligence Agencies

 
2014

Folk Singing Great Pete Seeger Dies

 
2017

Trump Immigration Ban Sparks Massive Protests at U.S. Airports

Jan 28
1918

Latino Lynching: Fifteen Latino Men and Boys Murdered in Rural Texas

 
1920

Five Episcopal Bishops Denounce Repressive “Red Scare” Measures

 
1930

ACLU to Sue NYC Police Over Brutality, Fatal Shooting of Communist Party Member in Demonstration

 
1944

Teens Declare That Boogie-Woogie Does Not Cause Delinquency!

 
1969

High School Principals “Worried” About Student Activism

Jan 29
1916

Louis Brandeis Nominated for Supreme Court

 
1973

Emily Howell Warner: First Female Pilot for a Commercial Airline

 
1976

House Suppresses Pike Committee Report on CIA Abuses

 
2001

President Bush Creates Office of Faith-Based Initiatives, Promotes Government-Supported Religion

 
2009

President Obama Signs Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act into Law

 
2010

Too Much Anne Frank Sexuality! Virginia Parents Object

Jan 30
1927

Professors, Scientists, and Fundamentalists Battle Over Evolution, Freedom to Teach

 
1942

Dr. Alan Guttmacher Issues Early Call for Legalized Abortion

 
1973

Watergate Burglary Leaders Convicted; Scandal Deepens

 
1977

Andrew Young Sworn in as Ambassador to the United Nations

 
1984

Reagan Attacks ACLU: “I Wear Their Indictment Like a Badge of Honor”

 
2011

First Annual Fred Korematsu Day

Jan 31
1937

ACLU Attorney Claims “Fundamental Right to Get Arrested”

 
1942

“Nothing Could Be More Hitlerian:” Pacifist Denounces Japanese-American Internment

 
1944

Eleanor Roosevelt Supports Equality for Women, But Not the ERA

 
1963

Folk Singer Josh White Performs for JFK at “Dinner with the President” on CBS TV

 
1969

Nixon Endorses Preventive Detention – No Bail for “Dangerous” Offenders

 
1976

Ernesto Miranda, of “Miranda Warning” Fame, Dies

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Abortion Rights ACLU african-americans Alice Paul anti-communism Anti-Communist Hysteria Birth Control Brown v. Board of Education Censorship CIA Civil Rights Civil Rights Act of 1964 Cold War Espionage Act FBI First Amendment Fourteenth Amendment freedom of speech Free Speech Gay Rights Hate Speech homosexuality Hoover, J. Edgar HUAC Japanese American Internment King, Dr. Martin Luther Ku Klux Klan Labor Unions Lesbian and Gay Rights Loyalty Oaths McCarthy, Sen. Joe New York Times Obscenity Police Misconduct Same-Sex Marriage Separation of Church and State Sex Discrimination Smith Act Spying Spying on Americans Vietnam War Voting Rights Voting Rights Act of 1965 War on Terror Watergate White House Women's Rights Women's Suffrage World War I World War II Relocation Camps

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