The Bad Old Days recounts the author's experiences as a volunteer leader of the American Civil Liberties Union from 1966, when he founded an ACLU chapter in Baton Rouge, to 1977, when he ended his work as state legislative director. Through a series of "war stories," he details his struggles on multiple fronts, including racial justice, the rights of students, women and the mentally ill, and reform of criminal justice. By the time the author switched his focus to nuclear disarmament, the Old South, organized around the subordination, exploitation and humiliation of Black people, had been transformed into something more like the rest of the country. That momentous change required the efforts and sacrifices of countless people, most of whose names never appear in the standard histories of those times.
