- Source: Lucille Bernheimer Milner
Lucille Bernheimer Milner (born Lucille Bernheimer, June 9, 1888 – August 14, 1975) was a cofounder the American Civil Liberties Union.
Biography
Milner was born on June 9, 1888, in St. Louis, Missouri. At the age of 16 she moved to Colorado where she was treated for tuberculosis, returning to St. Louis until she moved to Mobile, Alabama to live with relatives. In 1912 she married her first cousin (Reece Bernheimer or Maurice Lowenstein depending on the source.
Milner refers to her first husband only as "Reese" in her autobiography.) He died the same year.
Milner moved to New York where she attended the New York School of Philanthropy (now the Columbia University School of Social Work), and the Rand School of Social Science. She returned to St. Louis after graduation. There she met Roger Nash Baldwin, who she worked with at the St. Louis, Civic League. She became active in the cause of women's suffrage, joining the Equal Suffrage League of St. Louis and attending the National American Woman Suffrage Association.
Returning to New York, Milner was active in the National Civil Liberties Bureau advocating for the rights of conscientious objectors to military service. She would go on to serve as the executive secretary of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) when it was formed in 1920. The same year she married Joseph Milner with whom she had two children.
Milner had a long association with the ACLU. Her relationship grew strained in the 1930s when the ACLU began removing members of the organization who were known members of the Communist party. Specifically, the ACLU forced the resignation of Harry F. Ward and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. Milner quit the organization in to protest the ACLU's advocacy for the rights of American fascist groups in the 1940s.
In 1954 she wrote an autobiography entitled The Education of an American Liberal.
She died on August 14, 1975, in New York City.
