Today is the 45th anniversary of the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act!

[Tesha]

It eventually cost us (the Democrats) virtually every elected
office in the South, but passing it was absolutely the right
thing to do.

Let's take a moment and reflect back on some real progress
that we can be proud of!

Tesha

[Tesha]

1. Kick for the lunchtime crowd...

[Tesha]

2. One recommendation and no replies?

For one of the most-important pieces of legislation in our age?

Tesha

[Tesha]

3. Maybe someone in the East Coast dinnertime crowd cares...

[EFerrari]

4. Former KKK member apologizes to Rep. John Lewis. (video)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=385&topic_id=269928&mesg_id=269928

[EFerrari]

5. Her Bus Defiance Set Stage for Rosa Parks

Her Bus Defiance Set Stage for Rosa Parks

By The Associated Press

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — More than 50 years after her refusal to surrender her bus seat to a white woman set the stage for a similar act of defiance by Rosa Parks, Claudette Colvin is finally getting her due as a civil rights pioneer.

On March 2, 1955, the 15-year-old schoolgirl from Montgomery, Ala., was dragged off the bus by police, handcuffed and jailed. But her bold act drew little support from classmates — many of whom shunned her — or from the city's black leadership.

She went to court the following year as a plaintiff in a landmark lawsuit that struck down the legal underpinnings for segregated buses in the Jim Crow South and ended the bus boycott that kick-started the civil rights movement.

But even then she won scant recognition and had remained a footnote to history.

http://www.blacknews.com/news/her_bus_defiance_set_stage_for_rosa_parks101.shtml

[EFerrari]

6. On 100th Anniversary, NAACP Challenges First Black President

On 100th Anniversary, NAACP Challenges First Black President
By Hazel Trice Edney, NNPA Editor-in-Chief



WASHINGTON (NNPA) - Upon its 100th anniversary this week, the NAACP under the leadership of Benjamin Todd Jealous, set aside euphoria over the historic inauguration of the first Black president and challenged the Obama administration on where he stands on human and civil rights issues as they pertain to people of color.

''We’re not simply interested in a bail out for Main Street, it’s a good goal. It’s a good starting point. But, we want a fix for back street,'' says Jealous in a telephone press conference leading up to Feb. 12, the 100th birthday of the nation’s oldest civil rights organization. ''At the end of the day, we are not an organization who’s here merely to celebrate any milestone too much. On Jan. 20, we celebrated Obama as the nation’s first Black president and first president of color. On Jan. 21, we were well aware that he simply became the 44th president of the United States and all pressures that have worked the agenda of the presidents before him came to bear on him.”

He continues, “So, now, we’re out there with everybody else trying to make sure that his agenda is our agenda, that his agenda is one of civil rights and inclusion and opportunity for all. And right now there are two things that we’re concerned are not getting sufficient attention.”

The first issue that he listed was the need for federal enforcement of Black participation in jobs and contracts coming out of the $827 billion economic stimulus act, that has passed the House and is being negotiated in the U. S. Senate this week.
“White unemployment , since they’ve been calculated since 1940, have never gotten into double digits. Yet somehow this country finds it tolerable and somewhat normal to have Black unemployment in the double digits,” Jealous says.
The second issue is the need for law enforcement accountability - federal oversight and enforcement of police profiling and misconduct, which former President Bush promised, but never delivered in 2001.

http://www.theskanner.com/index.php?action=artd&artid=8407

[EFerrari]

7. Rep. Lewis Supports Preserving Building In Memory Of The Civil Rights Movement

Thursday, February 5, 2009
Rep. Lewis Supports Preserving Building In Memory Of The Civil Rights Movement

Congressman John Lewis, an Atlanta Democrat, wants to save one of the city's symbols of discrimination - the building that housed Lester Maddox's Pickrick restaurant. In July 1964, the future Georgia governor turned away black customers in defiance of the Civil Rights Act that outlawed public segregation. Georgia Tech later bought the property and remodeled it for offices and now wants to demolish the building for green space. Lewis says it needs to be saved because it's one of the few sites left in Atlanta that tells the story of the civil rights movement. Interim President Gary Schuster has offered to place a historical marker at the site since Maddox confronted patrons in the restaurant's parking lot.

http://gpbnews.blogspot.com/2009/02/rep-lewis-supports-preserving-building.html

[EFerrari]

8. kick

[L0oniX]

9. Just remember ...we didn't vote for this change ...we demonstrated, marched ...

participated in civil disobedience, rebelled and even rioted until they were forced to pass the Civil rights Act. This is how you really get things changed and Howard Zinn would say the same thing!

[Tesha]

10. I believe you're correct, and unfortunately, about to be proven correct again.

We're clearly not getting the "change" that many people
thought they voted for and that we so desperately need.

Tesha