The Faces of Liberty is a photo-journal exhibit that documents eight cases of individual Oregonians, including students, who stood up for their rights. Includes nine mounted photographs with explanatory essays & discussion questions. To see the photographs, click on the individual cases to the right.
The Faces of Liberty tells the story of ordinary people caught in extraordinary circumstances: a Vernonia youth barred from playing junior-high football for refusing to compromise his privacy in a mandatory drug test, a Native American living in Roseburg whose ceremonial use of peyote in an ancient rite cost him his job and later his unemployment benefits, a 10-year-old Eugene girl denied the simple joy of playing baseball because of her gender.
These are the faces of neighbors, coworkers, relatives, and friends—people not much different from those you know and care about. They are people who found themselves in circumstances that, in small ways or large, violated their dignity as human beings—people who fought, at no small cost to themselves, for basic rights we all hold dear. In a very real sense, the individuals whose images you see here fought for your rights as well as their own.
The Faces of Liberty exhibit was created in commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the Oregon Affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union and the 75th anniversary of the national ACLU.