Civil Rights

4 Key excerpts on "Civil Rights"

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  eBook - PDF

  Climbin' Jacob's Ladder

  The Black Freedom Movement Writings of Jack O’Dell

  • Jack O'Dell, Nikhil Pal Singh(Authors)
  • 2010(Publication Date)
  • University of California Press

    (Publisher)

  Fortunately, the world is becoming increasingly aware of this reality, especially as a result of the recent international conference held in Geneva which put the spotlight on the conditions of the Indian popu-lation in this hemisphere of the Americas. The Civil Rights movement is an old movement. After all, what was the struggle to abolish slavery but a struggle for those in bondage to be free to enjoy the Civil Rights of a citizen and not be regarded as merely the property of other citizens? This movement has deep roots in the United States American experience. It’s a tree that has been growing for two centuries. We don’t really have to buy a ticket on a Pan Am jet to go back to Europe or Africa in search of our “roots,” as the commercial TV ads suggest. In its basic motif of concern for the dignity of human life it’s as old as the words of the Prophet Amos, “Let Justice roll down and righteousness like a mighty stream,” and as new as the most recent mass demonstrations against the neutron bomb. In its genealogy this move-ment’s activists are the political descendants of Nat Turner and John Brown, Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Big Bill Haywood, Dr. W. E. B. Du Bois and the many leaders of Indian nations who fought for sovereignty and respect. The Civil Rights movement is very much alive, yet its life today is being consumed fighting defensive battles. The defense of Affirmative Action Programs in education and employment; the defense against retrenchment by some states whose legislatures are trying to rescind TRANSITION FROM Civil Rights TO CIVIL EQUALITY / 233 their decision to endorse the Equal Rights Amendment; the defense of innocents in prison like the Wilmington Ten Civil Rights workers and the Wounded Knee defendants are among such examples. No one can deny that defensive battles have to be fought from time to time and fought effectively so that victories are won.

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  eBook - ePub

  Political Development

  • Damien Kingsbury(Author)
  • 2007(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  As noted at the outset of this chapter, the link between civil and political rights and political development is a basic one. One could even argue that they are but differing interpretations of or orientation of focus towards the same basic quality. That is, it is not so much that political development cannot be achieved without due regard for civil and political rights, but as a central component of political development, the presence of civil and political rights is a key marker of the extent to which political development exists.

  There are various interpretations of what constitutes civil and political rights, but the UN Declaration of Human Rights is the most broadly supported and widely adopted version, with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights having been signed by most countries, if in many cases with specific qualifications that usually pertain to constitutional or legal issues (UNTC 2002). There are a total of 30 articles outlining people’s human rights, but the central and arguably most important principles are the right to life, liberty, property and security of person(s), freedom from torture or cruel, inhumane treatment or punishment, freedom of thought, conscience and religion, and freedom of expression and opinion and assembly.

  The rights to life, liberty, property and security of person are at the most basic end of the scale of rights and, at first glance, say little more than each person who is alive retains the right to stay that way and to own property. This then also goes to the issue of personal security. The question of property, however, becomes more problematic, not so much at the point where it refers to simple ownership of a home or the goods for a home, or tools or other means of making a living, but where the right to property for one impinges on the right to property of others. This potential caveat applies particularly to the individual or corporate accumulation of very large quantities of property. Hence, given the capacity for competing interests, the claim to property is left intentionally ambiguous.

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  Bringing Human Rights Home

  [3 volumes]

  • Catherine Albisa, Martha F. Davis, Cynthia Soohoo, Catherine Albisa, Martha F. Davis, Cynthia Soohoo(Authors)
  • 2007(Publication Date)
  • Praeger

    (Publisher)

  In trying to relink the struggles for civil and human rights, it seeks to connect the fight against racism to the often parallel fights against class, sex, nationality, or other status-based discrimina- tion not only in this country but elsewhere. 2 It also seeks to reconnect the struggle for civil and political liberty with that for economic, social, and cultural equality. As noted by the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. in a 1966 speech at Howard University, “Now we are grappling with basic class issues between the privileged and the under privileged. In order to solve this problem, not only will it mean restructuring the architecture of American society, but it will cost the nation something. . . . If you want to call it the human rights struggle, that’s all right with me.” 3 Often the contemporary U.S. human rights movement is criticized for this all-embracing framework, for what is called its “kitchen-sink” quality, that is, its seeming dilution of the significance of particular rights abuses or of particular abused groups in the name of promoting all human rights for everyone. This critique arises most virulently from the conservative, cor- porate right, which in any case contests the legitimacy of all but the most narrow rights claims. 4 But it also resonates quite deeply with respected human rights leaders who question its effectiveness and a wide range of progressive social justice movements that identify themselves with single issues or groups or both. In sum, opposition to or concern about the U.S. human rights movement is as wide-ranging as the movement itself. This, as I will discuss throughout, has had a significant effect on the movement’s development, its character, and its strategy.

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  Gateways to Democracy

  • John Geer, Richard Herrera, Wendy Schiller, Jeffrey Segal(Authors)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Cengage Learning EMEA

    (Publisher)

  All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. WCN 02-300 179 CHAPTER 5: Civil Rights Know Test Yourself Participate Identify the groups at the forefront of the Civil Rights movement Today public discrimination has been ended by constitutional amendments and the courts, largely through the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause. Beginning in the 1950s, litigation and grassroots protests led the federal government to end segregation and secure voting rights for African Americans and to end limits to women’s full participation in public life. ● Explain why the Brown decision by itself had only a minimal effect on school desegregation. ● Identify the grassroots protests that opened the gateways to ending private discrimination. ● Describe how Congress and the courts have pushed along voting rights. ● Draw parallels between the Civil Rights movement for African Americans, Latinos, and women. ● Weigh the impact on social policy of the legislative branch against that of the judicial branch. ● Appreciate the impact active citizens can have on government. ● Appreciate the impact law can have on politics and society. Describe the new battles for Civil Rights The expanded notion of equality pro- moted by the Civil Rights and women’s rights movements inspired other groups, such as homosexuals and the disabled, to demand full access to equality. The extension of rights for some may involve a loss of privileges for others, and some- times rights clash. Congress and the courts seek to define the meaning and limits of rights in new areas of conten- tion. The trend has always been for a broader meaning of equality and greater support for Civil Rights. ● Explain why support for same-sex marriage is likely to increase over time. ● Recall why legislatures have been so responsive to people with disabilities. ● Define racial, ethnic, and religious profiling. ● Describe different state regulations on voting rights for felons.

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