I'm Lee Rowland, and from the ACLU, this is At Liberty, the podcast where we discuss today's most important civil rights and civil liberties questions.

On August 12, 2017, a now infamous gathering of racists, Confederate supporters, KKK, and neo-Nazis, gathered in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Local resident Jason Kessler had obtained a permit for the group to rally around a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee in the city's Emancipation Park.

The day was a disaster.

City officials declared the assembly unlawful, before it even began, dispersing the planned

ralliers and an even greater number of

counter-protesters into the streets. Violence erupted throughout the city, and Heather

Hire was murdered by a man who drove his car into a crowd of anti-racists. Prior to the rally,

the ACLU of Virginia had successfully represented Kessler in court in a First Amendment lawsuit, when just days before the widely planned event, city officials attempted to revoke the group's permit to force them away from Emancipation Park. The ACLU's representation of Kessler has renewed debate, internally and externally,

about the ACLU's role as an organization dedicated to free speech and racial justice.

Can an organization be truly dedicated to both equality and liberty? One year out from Charlottesville, we're in the studio with probably the two best people

to have exactly that discussion.

Dennis Parker is director of the ACLU's Racial Justice Program, and Ben Wisner directs

the group's Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project.

And in the interest of full disclosure, I myself was a free speech attorney at the national

ACLU for much of my career.

So Ben and Dennis are both my friends and former colleagues.

Dennis, Ben, welcome.

Thank you.

Thanks, Lee.

Before we delve into the heart of Charlottesville and the issues it raises, tell me, and Dennis,

maybe I'll start with you.

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