This is the Moth Radio Hour.
I'm Meg Bulls, and in this hour, we bring you three stories of history and tradition,
or more specifically, the ways people are often restricted by these legacies,
especially when they're dictated by law.
Attorney Michael Steinberg told this first story at an evening we produced at St.
Anne's and the Holy Trinity Church in Brooklyn, New York.
Here's Michael Steinberg, live at the Moth.
In 1997, I was appointed legal director of the ACLU of Michigan.
It was the honor of my life, but I had considerable anxiety about whether I was up to the task.
You see,
I view the ACLU as being the organization responsible
for keeping our country true to its stated values of freedom and equality and democracy.
And it was a tall order and there's a lot of pressure.
Plus, it seemed like the...
ACLU legal directors of other state affiliates were all graduates of Harvard or Yale Law School,
and then he had already argued cases in the US Supreme Court.
I had been a high school teacher and a soccer and basketball coach and I did a little political organizing before I went to a state law school and started a very small private practice and I had no idea how it ever matched the accomplishments of my colleagues.
My worst fear was I would do something stupid.
And they'd laugh at that imposter in Michigan.
But being the coach that I was, I decided to give myself a pep talk.