I carried this copy of Allen Ginsberg’s Howl in my back pocket during high school, losing myself in the rich imagery of his poems, painting pictures of worlds and situations I would probably never witness directly. Nevertheless, it was hard not to feel energized by the torrent of words, ideas, and passion that burst forth from the page. Published in 1956, the title poem and its publisher, City Lights Books, were at the center of an obscenity trial a year later, charges the ACLU successfully fought. The judge ruled that Howl had “redeeming social importance.” Sixty-five years later, many of the elements that led to those obscenity charges remain at the forefront of the ACLU’s work: LGBTQ+ rights, freedom of speech, disability rights, and so many more. Howl celebrates that “lost battalion of platonic conversationalists” whose voices challenged the trajectory of American literature, even if they didn’t live to tell the tale; “And their heads shall be crowned with laurel in oblivion.”