Civil and Human Rights Coalition Releases State of Civil and Human Rights Report
WASHINGTON – Today, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights released “50 Years after the Civil Rights Act: The Ongoing Work for Racial Justice in the 21st Century,” a report documenting the landscape of civil and human rights in 2014.
The report comes on the same day that the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Human Rights holds a hearing on the State of Civil and Human Rights in America, where Wade Henderson, the president and CEO of The Leadership Conference, will testify.
The report looks at the broad landscape of civil and human rights and digs deeper into the most stubborn and longstanding inequities of the past 50 years, along with modern challenges, such as those posed by big data technologies.
Despite much progress, America’s track record is decidedly mixed. As Henderson writes in the foreword to the report, “on nearly every indicator that we use in the United States to measure progress, people of color are falling further behind.”
These words are complemented by Henderson’s testimony at today’s hearing, where he’ll acknowledge that our country faces “big challenges. But historic anniversaries remind us that our journey toward justice is like an Olympic relay. We take the torch from those who came before and pass it along to those who will follow. We applaud efforts to address civil rights issues and spark reform, but a significant portion of the country continues to be alienated and disenfranchised. We must continue to work together to better protect and promote justice throughout the United States.”
The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights is a coalition charged by its diverse membership of more than 200 national organizations to promote and protect the rights of all persons in the United States. The Leadership Conference works toward an America as good as its ideals. For more information on The Leadership Conference, visit www.civilrights.org.
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