Passing the Torch of National Leadership
With the inauguration of President Bill Clinton in 1993, the torch of national leadership was passed to a new generation who had come of age during the civil rights revolution and understood the need for the nation to develop and enlist the energies and talents of all of its people.
President Bill Clinton, who had grown up in Arkansas during the desegregation of its public schools, would speak of the need for a government that “looks like America.” His vice president, Al Gore, was the son and namesake of one of the few Southern senators who did not sign the “Southern Manifesto” opposing school desegregation.
President Clinton’s immediate predecessor, George H.W. Bush, had continued the Reagan era’s retrenchment on civil rights. With the exception of the Americans with Disabilities Act (which provided civil rights protections in employment, transportation, communications, and public accommodations for 49 million Americans with disabilities), the Bush administration time and again supported efforts to weaken civil rights enforcement efforts.
The most lasting, and perhaps most harmful, impact on civil rights enforcement by the Reagan and Bush presidencies were the changes they were able to make to the federal judiciary. Presidents Reagan and Bush combined named more than 560 judges to the federal bench, almost two-thirds of all sitting judges at the time, a great many of whom were subjected to ideological litmus tests before their nominations.
The changes Presidents Reagan and Bush were able to effect in the Supreme Court would be among the most consequential. The nomination of Judge Robert Bork to the high court was rejected by the Senate after a broad‑scale public campaign — coordinated by The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, then known as the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR) — that demonstrated how far the South and other regions of the nation had progressed on civil rights. Even so, Presidents Reagan and Bush were ultimately able to name five members of the high court, and its turn to the right on civil rights issues would soon be evident. Over the next two decades, LCCR and its congressional allies would need to overturn more than a dozen Supreme Court decisions that had weakened civil rights laws.
Yet, despite the efforts of the Supreme Court and the Reagan and Bush administrations, many positive gains in civil rights were achieved under the leadership of Ralph Neas and Benjamin Hooks — the executive director and chairperson of the LCCR, respectively — and their LCCR colleagues.
In the 101st Congress, in addition to the Americans with Disabilities Act, LCCR helped enact the Hate Crime Statistics Act, as well as an increase in the federal minimum wage.
In the 102nd Congress, LCCR priorities enacted into law included the Civil Rights Act of 1991 (which overturned eight Supreme Court decisions and provided, for the first time, monetary damages for women and persons with disabilities who are victims of intentional discrimination), the Voting Rights Language Assistance Act of 1992, and the reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
The 103rd Congress was exceptionally productive. With the substantial assistance of President Bill Clinton, 10 LCCR legislative priorities were enacted into law, including the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (including Chapter One reform), the Family and Medical Leave Act, the National Voter Registration Act, gun control legislation, the Gender Equity in Education Act, the Violence Against Women Act, and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
In these legislative achievements, LCCR’s older organizations — including the NAACP, NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the National Council of La Raza (now known as UnidosUS), AFL‑CIO, Union of American Hebrew Congregations, AFSCME, and the National Women’s Law Center — joined with newer coalition members such as People For the American Way, American Association of Retired Persons, Human Rights Campaign Fund, the National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium (now known as Asian American Advancing Justice | AAJC), the American Association of University Women, and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, to help the coalition’s efforts.
The transition in the White House was soon followed by LCCR’s own leadership transition. With Benjamin Hooks’ retirement from the NAACP in 1992 and as chair of LCCR two years later, along with Ralph Neas’ retirement from LCCR in 1995, member organizations faced the challenge of replacing the strategists who had led LCCR’s heroic and successful campaigns to circumvent much of the Reagan and Bush administrations’ anti-civil rights agendas.
The coalition’s executive committee undertook the difficult task of finding successors. To the unanimous pleasure of LCCR’s national board, which ratified the executive committee’s recommendation at its annual meeting in May 1994, Dr. Dorothy I. Height, president of the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW), became the first woman to chair the LCCR, a position she would hold for decades. Dr. Height was one of the leaders of the civil rights coalition in 1950 when the LCCR was founded. She had also served as president of Delta Sigma Theta, a founding organization of LCCR. In 1957, Dr. Height assumed the leadership of the NCNW, a role she held until her retirement in 1998, when she would transition to the role of NCNW’s chair and president emerita.
During her first year as chair, Dr. Height led the coalition in its search for a new executive director. Seeking an acting head, LCCR turned, as it had done on many occasions in the past, to the AFL-CIO, a strong supporter of LCCR since its founding. The AFL-CIO responded with the loan of its director of civil and human rights, Richard Womack, to serve in an acting capacity.
Womack was no stranger to the coalition. As a member of the LCCR executive committee, he provided the transitional leadership needed to defend affirmative action initiatives at the national level. Womack also fought to limit damaging provisions of welfare reform and immigration legislation. He helped secure passage of the Church Arson Prevention Act, and he worked to seek passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. LCCR also engaged the services of its former executive director, Ralph Neas, as counsel to its Affirmative Action Task Force. During this transitional period, the executive committee, its task force chairs, and members who supported and assisted Womack spoke in a united voice to strengthen the goals and future of the LCCR.
In 1996, as LCCR prepared to celebrate its 46th year at its annual national board meeting and its Hubert H. Humphrey Civil Rights Award Dinner, the executive committee made another historic announcement. In a unanimous decision, Wade Henderson, director of the Washington office of the NAACP, was chosen as the LCCR’s new executive director. Before joining the NAACP, Henderson had been the associate director of the Washington office of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), beginning his career there as a legislative counsel and advocate on a wide range of civil rights and civil liberties issues. At the NAACP and ACLU, Henderson had been a key player in the civil rights coalition’s efforts on immigration, fair housing, voting rights, family and medical leave, judicial nominations, and gun safety, among many issues.
Henderson had won and would go on to retain overwhelming support from the LCCR’s member organizations with whom he had worked on the frontlines in the fight for civil rights. Under Henderson’s leadership and in partnership with Dr. Height, LCCR would grow in many areas — gaining national attention on civil rights issues affecting all Americans, expanding its capacity, and undertaking new initiatives reflecting its ever-widening constituencies and concerns as well as the challenges of changing times.
As we celebrate our 75th anniversary, the civil rights coalition is confronting challenges that even such visionaries as our founders Roy Wilkins, A. Philip Randolph, and Arnold Aronson might not have foreseen. Today, the administration of President Donald Trump is acting as if the government can do whatever it wants, without accountability, even if it violates our rights and takes away our freedoms. The Trump administration is intentionally attacking any business, law firm, college, university, school, organization, or government watchdog that disagrees with its policies or challenges its abuses and corruption.
Fortunately, the civil rights coalition is prepared to meet these challenges and seize any opportunities with which we may be presented. Our open letter to the American people confirms our refusal to be silenced or intimidated. Our pledge invites people to commit to defending our rights and freedoms by taking specific actions, including speaking up, attending protests, contacting elected officials, supporting civil rights organizations, and sharing information about these threats. Our pact — a Civil Rights Coalition Unity Commitment — is a mutual support agreement among America’s leading civil rights organizations in response to escalating threats and actions taken by the White House and federal agencies that target nonprofit organizations doing important public service work on behalf of millions of people in America.
While the barriers we have faced over the past 75 years have changed, our rallying cry has not: Together, across communities, we are building a just and fair future for us all. From our founding, people who would choose injustice have tried to confine our potential, dampen our dreams, and silence our voices. Our coalition has responded by opening its doors, by continually expanding its vision for justice and opportunity, and by achieving landmark civil rights wins for our communities and democracy. We’re not stopping now.
Read more about The Leadership Conference’s history and legacy in our 75th Anniversary series: “This Is a Time for Action”: On This MLK Day, We Honor Our 75-Year-Old Coalition’s Legacy, Courage, and Resilience; At 75, Our Work Continues; Chaos, Confusion, & Abuse of Power: Trump’s First Week Back in Office; An Unending Fight to Hold on to What We Had Won; Progress Against the Odds.