MAINE CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION

ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero to Speak at NAACP Breakfast

Romero is First Latino to Keynote this Event

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, January 12, 2007

Portland- American Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Anthony Romero will be the first Latino to address the NAACP’s annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Breakfast Celebration on Monday, January 15 at 8:00 a.m. at the Holiday Inn by the Bay in Portland.

Romero, who in 2005 was named one of Time Magazine’s 25 Most Influential Hispanics in America, will address the need to build relationships and strengthen the connections between all people working for racial equality. 

“We are so honored to have a national leader like Anthony Romero join us as we work to strengthen our relationship with the Latino community” said Rachel Talbot Ross, president of the NAACP Portland Branch.  “In this way, we continue to build a community united under the principle that all men and women are created equal.  That is the greatest way to honor Dr. King’s legacy.”

Romero will also address the critical relationship between civil rights and civil liberties.  Notably, in 1963 Martin Luther King, Jr. became the target of one of the most notorious cases of government wiretapping in United States history.  Today, the ACLU is a nationwide leader in fighting warrant less phone surveillance by the National Security Agency.

“Standing up for equality is not a subversive activity,” said Rachel Myers, Field Organizer at the Maine Civil Liberties Union, “but the government practice of warrant less surveillance has a chilling effect on activists who are trying to carry out King’s work to eliminate race discrimination.”  

Romero, an attorney with a history of public interest activism, became the Executive Director of the ACLU in 2001. 

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