The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund today launched a new site, ReclaimCivilRights.org, to serve as a clearinghouse for civil rights enforcement materials. The website features an interactive map demonstrating how individual states have been affected by recent rollbacks in civil rights enforcement as well as an interactive timeline that tracks civil rights progress and setbacks.
The site was announced today in a media briefing call with former Assistant Attorney General John Dunne, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights President Wade Henderson, NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund President & Director/Counsel Theodore Shaw and MALDEF Regional Counsel Peter Zamora.
The call participants discussed the future of the Civil Rights Division the same day that a Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the 50th anniversary of the 1957 Civil Rights Act.
The 1957 Civil Rights Act, passed with overwhelming bipartisan support, established the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice and created a federal civil rights legal infrastructure. The 1957 Act also expanded the Attorney General’s reach in certain civil rights cases and established the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
Full unedited testimony of all of the committee’s witnesses, as well as key fact sheets and video, will be available at www.reclaimcivilrights.org.