Nat Hentoff is one of America's foremost and most passionate writers about civil liberties and civil rights. In Living the Bill of Rights, he has taken what is too often thought of as an abstract issue and enlivened it by focusing on representative individuals for whom the Constitution is a vital part of life. Hentoff covers the full range of American life in these inspiring and moving profiles and stories and portrays such fighters for the Bill of Rights as a high school senior in Tennessee who is a born-again Christian; a black Texas lawyer fired by the local NAACP for representing a Klan wizard on constitutional grounds; Justice William Brennan himself; another Supreme Court justice, William O. Douglas, the preeminent supporter of the individual against the government; and a professional basketball star who, for religious reasons, would not participate in a display of mass loyalty to the American flag. In Living the Bill of Rights, Hentoff illuminates the basic necessity - and fragility - of our rights and liberties.

Includes index.

The Bill of Rights : the first ten amendments to the Constitution of the United States of America -- Introduction : "Tell them stories about how our liberties were won and what keeps them alive" -- Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas : "Bill's life, like his law, was free." -- Anthony Griffin : "If you take the first amendment from the Klan, we, as black folks, will be the next to suffer." -- Supreme Court Justice William Brennan, part I : "The censorial power is in the people over the government, and not in the government over the people." -- Supreme Court Justice William Brennan, part II : "Schools cannot expect their students to learn the lessons of good citizenship when the school authorities themselves disregard the fundamental principles underpinning our constitutional freedoms." -- Supreme Court Justice William Brennan, part III : "The evolving standards of human decency will eventually lead to the abolition of the death penalty in this country." -- Dr. Kenneth Clark, part I : the last of the integrationists? -- Dr. Kenneth Clark, part II : simple justice and how it got lost : "I saw this white kid, and he was saying, 'Look, this segregation is increasing bigotry.'" -- Color coding : she had to leave the room because the class was reserved for African American students -- Individuals of conscience against the state : "Those who won our independence by revolution were not cowards." -- Banning the Bill of Rights and the rest of the Constitution from our prisons -- Nowhere in the Constitution is there a mention of God : the continuing battles for freedom of religion-and freedom from religion -- Further bold adventures of men and women of conscience -- Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy : "The Constitution needs renewal and understanding each generation, or else it's not going to last." -- The Constitution of the United States of America.