LHVCLU: Major Events

LHV Chapter: We are your neighbors, acting together to protect and expand our freedom.

The Lower Hudson Valley Chapter of the New York Civil Liberties Union serves the counties of: Westchester, Putnam, Dutchess, Rockland, Orange, Sullivan, and Ulster.

It is a part of the New York Civil Liberties Union,
which is the NY State affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union.

LHVCLU was organized in 1962, as the Westchester Civil Liberties Union, and has been actively supporting the Constitutional Rights of the people of our area for over four decades.

*	W H E N 2nd Tuesday of each month
*	W H E R E 297 Knollwood Road, Suite 217 White Plains, NY
*	T I M E 6:30 to 8:00 PM
*	P H O NE 914-997-7479
*	EMAIL US: lberns@nyclu.org

MAJOR EVENTS

• Bill of Rights
• Henry Schwarzschild
• Bill of Rights Defense Campaign

The Bill of Rights was ratified on December 15, 1791. Last year’s Bill of Rights Day marked the 213th Anniversary of the Civil Liberties Unions first and foremost client. Each year our chapter celebrates Bill of Rights Day with a program at the National Shrine of the Bill of Rights, the St. Paul’s Church National Historic Site, at 897 South Columbus Avenue in Mount Vernon.

St. Paul’s, a National Park Service property, has been a designated National Historic Site since 1943. Its interior has been restored to its 1787 appearance, and the audience at our programs sits in box pews similar to those used by Revolutionary and pre-Revolutionary figures who worshipped there when the building was an Anglican Church. The buildings and museum on the site are interesting, but the location itself is what initially connected St. Paul’s to the Bill of Rights.

The Church stands at the edge of the site of what was then the Eastchester village green, and on that green, in 1733, an election was held. A newspaper editor named John Peter Zenger criticized that election, and the manner in which persons in power arranged that their preferred candidates would win, despite not having the support of the majority of those who came to vote. For that criticism, Zenger was arrested, jailed, and tried for seditious libel. His trial and acquittal by a jury form a cornerstone of American First Amendment principle.

To learn more about the National Historic Site click here.

If you would like to work on the Bill of Rights Day Program please contact our office. 914-997-7479.

HENRY SCHWARZSCHILD

Henry Schwarzschild was a long-time member of the Boards of the WCLU and our parent, the NYCLU, and a lifelong civil libertarian. He was an ardent advocate of civil rights and an eloquent opponent of capital punishment. In his honor and memory, we, together with the Hogarth Center for Social Action at Manhattanville College, has established the annual Henry Schwarzschild Memorial Lecture.

As Executive Director of the Lawyers’ Constitutional Defense Committee in the 1960’s, Schwarzschild recruited and dispatched attorneys to represent freedom riders and civil rights protesters arrested in the Deep South. Later, he served on the staff of the ACLU and as Director of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.

As friend, mentor, colleague, and role model, Henry Schwarzschild showed us how to bring our human resources to bear on the most pressing moral problems of our times. With eloquent reason and soft-spoken outrage, he fixed a spotlight on civic indecency and insisted that it be opposed. The Schwarzschild Lectures focus on these critical issues of human rights and human dignity, and will feature individuals who have themselves made significant contributions in thought and action.

The inaugural Schwarzschild Lecture was presented in 1999 by Bryan Stevenson, Esq., founder and Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative. EJI, headquartered in Montgomery, Alabama, provides expert counsel to Death Row inmates in the Deep South. The program also included Ramsey Clark, former Attorney General of the United States and Mel Wulf, one of the nation’s foremost civil liberties litigators, both of whom were friends of Henry Schwarzschild.

The 2000 Schwarzschild lecture was presented by Leonard Weinglass, eminent civil rights and civil liberties litigator, whose present case, the defense of Pennsylvania Death Row inmate Mumia Abu Jamal , has focussed nationwide attention on the conjunction between racism and the death penalty.

The 2001 lecturer was Professor Hugo Bedau of Tufts University, author of The Death Penalty in America and nationally recognized academic expert in the field.

The 2002 lecture was presented by Stephen B. Bright. Since 1982, Stephen Bright has been the Director of the Southern Center for Human Rights, a non-profit law project dedicated to enforcing constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment by challenging death penalty convictions.

The 2003 lecturer was Michael Ratner, President of the Center for Constitutional Rights, who has worked for decades as a crusader for human rights, both at home and abroad.

The 2004 lecturer was Robert Meeropol. Robert Meeropol is the son of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were executed in 1953. He is a major advocate against the death penalty.

The 2005 lecture was delivered by James Liebman, Simon Rifkind Professor of Law at Columbia University. He has co-authored two books about error in capital cases in the twenty-three year period, 1973 to 1995, and found the overall rate in the American capital punishment system was 68%.

The 2006 lecture was delivered by Sister Helen Prejean, who began her prison ministry in 1981. She became the spiritual advisor to Patrick Sonnier, a Louisiana death row inmate, and through their relationship she became deeply involved in death penalty reform. Her first book, Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States, became a bestseller and in 1996 an Academy Award-winning film starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn. Sister Helen’s second book, The Death of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions, was published 2 years ago. She lectures widely on this issue, and, in fact, it took us several years to coordinate schedules to enable Sister Helen to lecture this past year.

BILL OF RIGHTS DEFENSE CAMPAIGN

Just 45 days after the 9-11 terrorist attacks President Bush signed the USA PATRIOT Act (acronym for "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism") into law.

The NYCLU initiated the Bill of Rights Defense Campaign (BORDC) in Westchester County. We succeeded in having a resolution passed by the Westchester County Legislature in September 2004. It called upon governmental authorities to respect fundamental civil liberties when undertaking antiterrorism initiatives. More than forty local organizations joined us. The Town of Greenburgh, the City of Mount Vernon, and the Town of Mamaroneck have passed their own resolutions.

The Patriot Act, along with Executive Orders issued after 9-11, threatens rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution. We are concerned about the erosion of the First Amendment: freedom of speech, religion, assembly and press, Fourth Amendment: freedom from unreasonable searched and seizures, Fifth Amendment: no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law, Sixth Amendment: right to a speedy trial, right to confront witnesses, right to have counsel, Eighth Amendment: no excessive bail, no cruel or unusual punishment and the Fourteenth Amendment: All persons are entitled to due process and protection under the law.

It is not necessary to violate the Constitution in order to protect the public. There is no inherent conflict between security and liberty. We believe we can be both safe and free. We object specifically to the following, the unchecked authority of the executive branch; the vast expansion of government surveillance; the discriminatory law enforcement practices; the suppression of dissent; and government secrecy.