The Noblest Cry: A History of the American Civil Liberties Union
New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1965. First edition. 464 pages including index. Charcoal cloth, title in silver on blue panels on the front board and spine, top edge stained blue, blue endpapers. Unclipped dust jacket ($7.95) designed by Robert Jonas, author photo by Jerry Bauer. The rear panel is printed with a list of the book’s “astonishing questions,” from a judge forcing a man to kiss the flag to a HUAC staffer praising Hitler’s treatment of Jews. From the library of L. John Wood (1930–2026), Indianapolis attorney, chairman of the Indianapolis Human Rights Commission (1970–76), longtime Indiana ACLU board member and national ACLU board member (1968–73), and counsel to the Indianapolis Public Schools board during the remedy phase of the city’s federal desegregation case. It carries his characteristic reading note, written here at the head of the final index leaf because the endpapers are black: “2 July 1969,” the date he finished the book, followed by his code “MAR.” He read it during his first year on the ACLU’s national board. Book clean and tight. Jacket with chips and small losses at the spine head and along the upper edge of the front panel, light toning, and light soiling to the rear panel. Markmann’s history traces the Union from Roger Baldwin’s founding in 1920 through its early defense of labor organizers, conscientious objectors, and immigrants, to its later fights over wiretapping, loyalty oaths, police abuse, censorship, and racial discrimination. Published in the middle of the civil rights era, it was the first book-length history of the organization.
First Edition. Hardcover. Very Good / Very Good. Item #UB-51695
Price: $60.00