When I started, the ACLU did almost all of its work in the courts. Then it moved to the legislatures. But now the big push at the ACLU is to do more work in educating the public and public outreach. We have to spend time building popular support for the rights of the minority. In many ways, that's counterintuitive.
Civil liberties are, by definition, unpopular.
But people need to understand that anybody can be in the minority. If you have something unpopular to say to your local city council or zoning board and you're hustled out of the room, you're a member of a minority group who needs protection. The cases that I was most emotionally involved in were the ones where we put together a huge legal team which brought the FBI to justice. One was on behalf of Walter Bergman, one of the original Freedom Riders. We ended up with pictures of paid FBI informants beating up Freedom Riders.