The ACLU of Maryland Looks to the Future

Early Voting began last Thursday and continues through this Thursday. As of today, about 30,000 more people have voted early than had done so at this point in the last election. Election Day is a week from tomorrow.Please be sure to vote. Or as the American Civil Liberties Union is fond of saying: Vote like your rights depend on it. Because they do. Indeed, the right to vote is one of the civil liberties at the heart of the ACLUs’ work -- along with the right to free speech, the right to privacy and the right to a fair trial, to name a few.Today on Midday: a changing of the guard at the Maryland ACLU. Susan Goering joins Tom in Studio A. She has just stepped down after leading the ACLU of MD for 33 years, first as its legal director, and then, since 1996, as the organization’s executive director. Before her tenure at the ACLU Goering was an attorney for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.Later in the show, Dana Vickers Shelley joins Tom. She is the Maryland ACLU’s new executive director. She previously held senior positions in public affairs and communications with the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Annie E. Casey Foundation. She was a senior advisor for the 2016 Democratic National Convention, and has advised many nonprofits and foundations on social justice issues and strategic communications. Most recently, she was on the faculty of Morgan State University’s School for Global Journalism and Communication.This conversation was livestreamed on the WYPR Facebook page. To see that video, click here.Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.