History’s Lessons for the Second Committee for the First Amendment

History's Lessons for the Second Committee for the First Amendment

Jane Fonda is reviving the Hollywood advocacy group to meet the high-stakes challenges to free expression in the Trump era.

Earlier this month, actor and activist Jane Fonda announced the reformation of the Committee for the First Amendment (CFA), the organization her father, Henry Fonda, joined in 1947 as Hollywood's initial answer to the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC).

Its revival is an inspiring bid to galvanize the principled resistance to the anticommunist inquisitions of the McCarthy era in our current collapsing democracy—but the original CFA is also a cautionary tale in the long history of the entertainment industry's tolerance for dissent.

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Jane Fonda accepts her Lifetime Achievement Award at last winter’s Screen Actors’ Guild ceremony.

Author's summary: Jane Fonda revives Committee for the First Amendment.

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The Nation The Nation — 2025-10-26

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