When people walk into the ACLU’s modern and spacious office in the Central West End, they see a framed photo of a classic-looking, historic home. It’s a tribute to the ACLU’s former office and foundational years.
When Brenda Jones became executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri eight years ago, she urged the organization to sell the house.
“It was a charming old house,” said Jones, who will retire at the end of January. “But it was indicative of the time and the state of development we were in. While it was a lovely place to work, I wanted the organization to grow and project.”
In her tenure, she grew the ACLU-EM from a small, insular group of loyal workers who put their own money into the organization to keep it afloat into an organization that is a national strategic affiliate with a growing donor base. She will soon lead the state’s two ACLU offices – ACLU of Eastern Missouri and ACLU of Western Missouri – into joining into one.
“I think that Brenda has some really intellectual understanding of a more modern governance structure,” said Sheila Greenbaum, president of the affiliate board and a shareholder of Capes, Sokol, Goodman and Sarachan.
Under Jones’ leadership, the ACLU is taking on more cases of civil liberties violations than ever and winning more cases than ever, she said.
“You have to come in and talk about change, and it doesn’t always go down easy – that’s probably the understatement of the year,” Jones said. “To make some of those changes, I’ve been very controversial.”
Yet she had strong support from people who shared her vision.
“The people who are change agents tend to be controversial,” Greenbaum, said. “It may be that it’s a compliment.”
In January, Jones said she looks forward to letting a new director take the organization through its next steps.
“I don’t believe I’m the right person to take it to the next level,” she said. “It’s been a history-making period. Now I am looking for concrete ways to volunteer and to do some other meaningful things.”
Before ACLU
Jones has a knack for entering into an organization and providing what it needs. Prior to the ACLU, Jones ran the outreach programs for the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. She was one of the leaders in creating IN UNISON, which pairs the symphony orchestra with the best choirs in the African-American churches in St. Louis.
“It happened under a period when the symphony was under fire for being elitist, for borrowing money from the state, and because the audience wasn’t reflective of the community,” Jones said.
She also fought to establish more art programs in underserved areas throughout the state when she ran the Missouri African-American Cultural Initiative. After three years, the program’s budget got caught up in politics and came to an end, she said.
She went on to lead successful outreach programs for the Missouri Botanical Gardens.
“Public funding is going into these institutions,” she said. “They are wonderful organizations. They need to be inclusive – and that’s more than just inviting them to be members.”
Police accountability
When she arrived at the ACLU, the civil liberties violations in the region were overwhelming. She knew the organization had to grow in order to tackle them. Police accountability has always been a big deal to the ACLU, she said. Jones told the board of directors that the ACLU needed to take on more cases.
“Unless someone makes it cost something for police to keep behaving this way, it’s not going to stop,” she said. “Let’s make it cost something. We have brought forth a number of cases in my time and won a lot of cases.”
Redditt Hudson, a former ACLU associate who worked on police accountability issues, said, “If there were any violations, Brenda made sure we were quick to respond, and aggressively, in our advocacy when it comes to abuse of police authority. And yet we maintained a good relation with the police.”
More than ever, the ACLU is known throughout the African-American community for its advocacy and outreach. Hudson said previously many people in the black community didn’t know what the ACLU was.
“When you have an organization that has as its mission to defend civil liberties in Eastern Missouri, that was a disconnect that needed to be fixed,” he said. “That has everything to do with Brenda’s efforts.”
Jones also created the Muslim Rights Taskforce. In their outreach, they found that the Muslim community needed help dealing with the FBI.
“FBI agents come to a lot of Muslims’ houses and say they just want to ask you a few questions,” Jones said. “A lot of them felt like they had to talk with the FBI. They want to cooperate.”
The ACLU created a program to train volunteer attorneys to be able to step in when citizens find themselves in that situation.
The N-word
Still, the last eight years were filled with many sleepless nights for Jones.
“There were a lot of people who felt like I didn’t belong in this position,” she said. “I’m not a lawyer, and I’m not a constitutional scholar. But I know how to grow an organization. I know how to organize resources to get the best out of it. I know what diversity is, and it’s not window dressing for me.”
In the beginning, one of the board directors was using the “N-word,” which was reported in the press and caused division within the organization.
“Here I am an African-American director trying to run the organization and you have people debating whether this is a free speech issue,” she said. “When you are trying to come into an organization that has been traditionally led by people who are not of color, you really have to prove yourself on a different level, whether people admit it or not.”
Many feel the ACLU is fundamentally a different organization now.
Greenbaum said, “She leaves us with a much more diverse board, not only by race and ethnicity but also by age.”
“It’s real diversity,” Jones said. “The kind of diversity that we are not interested in people using the ‘N-word’ and saying that’s somehow some great free speech thing. We’re a different group of people now.”
Jones said she will bow out gracefully, knowing that future leaders will keep the mission vibrant.
“This is one of the most critical organizations that we have,” she said. “I’ll always be rooting for it.”
