Roger Baldwin
From Philosopedia
Baldwin, Roger Nash (21 January 1884 - 26 August 1981)
Baldwin, an American civil libertarian, helped found in 1920 the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). He was its director until 1950. His grandfather had been president of Boston’s Young Men’s Christian Union, named “union” because as a Unitarian he wanted Unitarians not to be excluded because of their belief that Jesus was a man, not a god. Unlike the Young Men’s Christian Association, the “Union” welcomed all, not just Christians.
During World War I, Baldwin asked to be a conscientious objector and, as a result, spent a year in prison despite the fact that the war ended on the day he left for prison.
Baldwin and Corliss Lamont had their political differences and, asked about humanism, Baldwin perhaps with Lamont in mind replied, “I am afraid I know too little about humanism to be of any service.” However, reviewing Lamont’s Freedom Is As Freedom Does for The Humanist, Baldwin concluded, “While Lamont addresses his book to liberals, radicals, and conservatives alike, his conservative audience, if any, will dismiss it, not without evidence, as just another case of special pleading.”
Baldwin taught at the New School for Social Research in New York (1938—1942) and the University of Puerto Rico (1966—1974). In 1973, he wrote Memorandum on the Origins of the ACLU, that emphasizes his view that no matter how offensive one’s ideas may appear to the majority those ideas are and must continue to be protected by the Bill of Rights.
Unitarianism
Robert C. Cottrell of California State University, Chico, wrote Roger Baldwin and the American Civil Liberties Union (NY:Columbia University Press, 2000). Cottrell has described in detail Baldwin's link to Unitarianism.
Correspondence
