Longtime ACLU leader dies at 83

Jay Miller, a longtime head of the American Civil Liberties Union in Illinois, has died at age 83.

Joshua Miller says his father died Tuesday in Evanston of complications from emphysema.

Miller spent four decades in the ACLU, rebuilding the organization after many left because of its 1978 defense of neo-Nazis who sought to march in Skokie, home to many Holocaust survivors.

He also defended protesters arrested during the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

Current ACLU executive director Colleen K. Connell told the Chicago Sun-Times that Miller traveled to every corner of the state to speak out for basic rights, “whether popular or unpopular.”

In addition to his wife, Miller is survived by two sons and a daughter. Services are planned for Friday at Chicago Jewish Funerals in Skokie.