NEW YORK

The American Civil Liberties Union, an influential civil rights group, elected a new president on Saturday, choosing a constitutional law scholar who said she would reach out to African-Americans and to religious communities where the group has often been viewed more as foe than friend.

"We plan to reach out to communities where the ACLU is not well-known or not well-understood," said Brooklyn Law School professor Susan Herman, the organization's general counsel until the vote.

“There’s a very widespread misimpression that the ACLU opposes religion" despite its efforts to protect rights to religious expression, Herman told The Associated Press, adding that she was surprised “there aren’t more people in the African-American community that believe the ACLU is their organization.”

Herman's selection gives the organization a new public face for the first time in nearly two decades. Nadine Strossen, the ACLU’s longest-serving president and the first woman to hold the job, had led the group since 1991, overseeing a substantial rise in formal membership and national staff.

The ACLU became especially active following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, challenging U.S. government practices regarding espionage, prisoner interrogations and the detention of terrorism suspects.

Herman said the group would build on Strossen's legacy and vowed to continue work in those areas, especially if the federal government continues with its policies. "Until after the presidential election ... we don't really know what the context will be," she said.

She said the group may expand its presence internationally, becoming more involved in civil liberties violations overseas.

The organization has long sought to increase its reach at home, working during Strossen's tenure to expand in the center of the country, where both its activities and support had traditionally been weak.

When Strossen became the ACLU's president, the group's national reputation was mixed. Just three years earlier in 1988, Republican presidential candidate George H.W. Bush scored easy political points against Democrat Michael Dukakis by writing him off as a "card-carrying member of the ACLU."