Civil Rights Essays (Examples)

Civil ights and Police Departments

The outline for basic civil rights in America is deceptively simple and straightforward; it appears in the Bill of ights, with a concentration on the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments. Taken together, these amendments govern the ability of the government to conduct searches and seizures, dictate the rules required for arrest, guarantee the right to remain silent, provide the right to an attorney, and prohibit cruel and unusual punishment (U.S. Const. Amends. IV, V, VI, and VIII). However, while the Bill of ights provide a broad outline of the civil rights that a criminal accused has in the United States, they are sufficiently vague that they have required constant interpretation. Furthermore, the United States has an ugly history of racial discrimination, and the Civil War Amendments, which include the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments were written to apply the Equal Protection guarantees of the…

Civil Rights:

The Ricci v. DeStefano case is a U.S. Supreme Court case that was decided in June, 2009 and raises concerns regarding the steps employers may take in situations where the avoidance of discrimination against one group may imply discrimination against another group. This case has attracted huge public concern that has resulted in various arguments that have been raised either in support or opposition of the Supreme Court's decision on this case. In one section, the decision by the Supreme Court in Ricci v. DeStefano is considered as very good news since it clearly and decisively demonstrated that the employment law only rarely allows quotas to solve racial imbalance. Therefore, the Supreme Court was implying that most racial preferences were mainly covered in dishonesty and secrecy. On the contrary, the court's decision in this case is viewed as a major blow to diversity in the United States workplace.…

Civil ights' refer to the measures the countrymen expect from their government to defend them in the application of their rights against the unfair execution of such rights by governments, groups, or persons. (Topic Overview Unit 5 - Civil ights: Demanding Equality) A civil right is an obligatory right or privilege, which in case meddled with by another results in an action for injury. Freedom of speech, fourth estate, assembly, exercise of one's franchise, liberty from involuntary enslavement, and the right to enjoy equal rights in public places are all instances of civil rights. In the event of denial or obstruction of civil rights due to owning allegiance to a specific set or class, incidence of inequity happens. Laws have been framed to check discrimination because of ethnic status, sex, religion, age, initial state of enslavement, bodily disadvantage, country to which they belong and in certain cases sexual preference. (Civil…

They are innocent, and would never harm anyone" (Smykowski). Many in Maycomb cannot see things from this perspective because their prejudice is much larger than the notion that someone might be helpless or simply harmless. This act of looking at an African-American without seeing the color of their skin is difficult to accept when society clings to ideas that have no relevance but have existed in communities for decades.

To Kill a Mockingbird is an excellent novel for instruction when teaches about the prejudices of others. In an age when we would think that we would have no problem giving people the rights they deserve, it becomes apparent that some people are only happy when they are taking things away from someone else. Lee's novel emphasizes this point through the eyes of children that have not lived long enough to become conditioned by the prevailing thought and norms regarding a…

Only with the passage of the Civil Rights Act 1964 and Voting Rights Act 1965 did the legacy of 'Jim Crow' truly end, many years after Plessy v. Ferguson was declared legally invalid in Brown. These two acts gave legislative 'teeth' to the Brown decision of the U.S. Supreme Court. The 1965 Act, signed into law by the Southern President Lyndon B. Johnson, outlawed literacy tests and poll taxes and other means of keeping African-Americans disenfranchised. The 1964 Act outlawed all forms of racial discrimination in education, employment, and in social places. It would still be many years before the consequences of these acts would be manifest in the form of more blacks attending institutions of higher learning, penetrating the higher levels of the professional class in record numbers, and before blacks and whites would live King's vision of brotherhood. However, they remain important steps in the fight for legislative…

Civil Rights

Most Americans have heard Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream Speech" in which he talked about the dream he had for the future of his nation in which people would be judged not by the color of their skin but by "the content of their characters." It's a stirring speech, of course, but today it is often offered to viewers out of context. There is the history of slavery and then the KKK and the era of Jim Crow, and then (in the abbreviated version of American history that is all too common) suddenly there is the "I have a Dream Speech" and then today there is an African-American president.

But, of course, the history of the fight for and the growth of American civil rights is hardly either so linear or so discontinuous. Nor is it as dependent on the work of Martin Luther King, Jr.…

Generally, this is the case when a person's job puts them at increased risk for violence, such as when that person is a cashier. Casino employees already work in an environment that increases the potential for violence; casinos generally feature a lot of money on the premises, a substantial amount of drinking alcohol on the premises, and people who have lost a significant amount of money. Due to these factors, even without the additional threats of violence from the terrorists, it seems clear that DI would have some type of protective duty towards its employees. Combined with the fact that there have been specific threats made against the hotel by a terrorist group that has shown its willingness to carry out those threats, it would be absolute disaster for DI to move forward in its business without addressing those threats. Moreover, it is clear that DI's internal security staff is…

Civil ights for LGBT

Gay Marriage

Stacy E. Kratz, LCSW, CAP

Issue, Policy, Problem

In socio-political countries such as the United States, the strategic and tactical choices existing to defend one's rights and advocate for social change are common. Activists can demonstrate on the streets, or publish and hand out their stories candidly to publicize and air their complaints. They can put together a legal case, and ask the court to order the state or another party to correct the wrong. They can lobby legislators to pass a bill, or alter an existing law, or, in some places, campaign voters directly to decide the issue at the polls. Such strategic and tactical options are accessible to activists, because they have access to, and are able to make use of formal democratic processes and formal guarantees of civil rights. These processes and guarantees allow them to elect politicians who stand for…

African-Americans, who made up roughly 12% of the U.S. population in 2004, held only 10% of state government policy-leader posts last year, atson reports. The report took note of the fact that under the leadership of New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, a Republican, only 4.8% of leadership positions were held by Blacks, albeit Black citizens make up 16% of New York State's population. In fairness, the report adds that African-Americans do hold an "equitable share of leadership jobs" in 11 of 29 states included in the survey.

Those states included: Indiana, Massachusetts, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia and isconsin. In fact, in isconsin, where Blacks made up only 5.7% of the population in 2000, Blacks hold nearly 19% of state leadership posts.

Civil rights in isconsin: That last statistic is not surprising, considering isconsin has a rich history of human rights, civil rights: "isconsin's progressive…

Civil ights Act of 1964 was landmark legislation in the United States. The original purpose of the Bill was to protect black men from job-related and other discrimination, but it was later expanded to include protection for women. As a result, it provided political momentum for feminism. This Act prohibited discrimination in public facilities, in government, and in employment. The Jim Crow laws in the South were finally discarded, and it was illegal to compel segregation of the races in schools, housing, or hiring. Although initial enforcement powers were weak, they grew over the years, and such later programs as affirmative action were made possible by the Civil ights Act.

President Lyndon Johnson signed the bill into law on July 2, 1964. Title VII of this Act outlaws discrimination in employment in any business on the basis of race, national origin, sex, or religion. Title VII only applies to employers…

The second point that Berg makes is that the NAACP and the communist party in the United States were not born bedfellows. The NAACP focused almost exclusively on race even though class and race were linked issues. The main reason why the NAACP did not align itself with the mainstream labor movement was that big labor was besieged by "notorious racism" (78). As a result, the NAACP downplayed class conflict and played up race relations. Alliances with some labor organizations like the CIO helped boost awareness of the link between class and racial oppression. Pre-World War Two NAACP was more socialist in tone than the post-World War Two NAACP. W.E.B. DuBois noted the connection between oppression of African-Americans and the oppression of all workers worldwide. This extension of the Civil Rights agenda did not last long, especially after the Cold War and the red scare demanded a different approach from…

The History of US Marshals in Civil Rights Era
The American society was polarized with the African Americans having a lower edge of protection as opposed to the white majority. The state vowed to protect them against harm but in doing so, formulated a federal agency to carry it out swiftly. U.S. marshals are held in high regard in society since they serve the American people. During slavery, a federal agency was formed through a Judiciary act in the constitution to help handle fugitives. Policing America was necessary post-segregation era since the African Americans needed protection against harm, discrimination, and criminalization. The U.S. marshals provided security for them, fulfilling their duty of call to the American people.
The first Congress created the U.S. Marshals under President George Washington. The president signed into law the Judiciary act on September 24, 1789, which charged the marshals with the enforcement of laws and…

Anti-Miscegenation Statutes in the U.S.
Introduction
Anti-miscegenation statutes in the U.S. had been in existence in many states since the early days of their founding. In California, for instance, the law forbidding the marriage of whites with non-white had existed since the middle of the 19th century—and it was not overturned until the state’s Supreme Court heard the case of Perez v. Sharp in 1948. Virginia had a similar anti-miscegenation statute, which was used to jail the Lovings who entered into an interracial marriage in the 1960s. This paper will look at two cases that challenged the Constitutionality of theses anti-miscegenation laws and how the rulings on them changed legislation throughout their respective states and ultimately throughout the country. It will also look at how these statutes might have impacted Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954) and the Fourteenth Amendment, as well as explain the significance of…

But in 1973, the American Psychological Association announced that they would be removing homosexuality from the list of recognized mental illnesses, as growing numbers of researchers and doctors realized that it represented fairly normal sexual behavior (Head par. 17).

A quick bit of simple arithmetic can tell you that it still took thirty years after the medical community determined that homosexuality was not dangerous or especially abnormal for the law to catch up. And in many instances, there still aren't laws protecting gays. All that the Supreme Court ruling did was ban laws that banned homosexual behavior; they cannot make laws to protect gay rights.

This has been the major issue plaguing the civil rights of homosexuals. Until the legislative branch of the government becomes involved in mandating that certain rights are protected, nothing that the judicial branch does will ever really be secure. This was shown most recently in…

Civil ights Historical Journal Entry

Tonight I awoke to the unmistakable sounds of long restrained rage being freed from its cage. My neighbors are in the street below the grocery store I've owned for nearly two decades, decent folks who are simply trying to earn a living and raise their families the right way. While most of them are Black, and have been since the bigoted practice of "blockbusting" drove most of the Whites to migrate en masse from the neighborhood of Watts (Simpson, 2012), these people are my neighbors, and in most cases, my dear friends. Tonight though, they have become an angry mob growing larger by the minute, a constellation of fierce eyes flashing amidst the darkness, orbiting slowly around a police car, the White cop driving it, and the young Black man he is trying to arrest. As the screams and shouts become more pitched, and the…

They would subsequently call them at home, leave literature and fetus dolls at their door, and even call families and distant relatives of the patients to inform them of the patients' plans to ask them to intercede. The Pro-Life advocates argued that they were lawfully exercising their right of free speech on public property (such as across the street fro doctors' offices) to verbally attack patients by name as they exercise their equally important right to personal physical autonomy under the recognized privacy penumbras.

The Value of the Legal Approach Suggested by the Article

The Yale Law Journal article (Clapman, 2003) explained various ways that the general right of free speech is limited by more important privacy rights. For example, truth is ordinarily an affirmative defense to defamation. However, existing law already recognizes that certain statements, despite being truthful, serve no valid purpose besides injuring another person, such as by…

Employers are not permitted to create requirements for jobs that have a disparate impact upon the ethnic composition of the workforce, if such requirements are not necessary for the job. But "once a plaintiff has established a prima facie case of disparate impact, the employer may defend by demonstrating that its policy or practice is job related for the position in question and consistent with business necessity." Furthermore, "the City's assertions that the exams at issue were not job related and consistent with business necessity are blatantly contradicted by the record, which demonstrates the detailed steps taken to develop and administer the tests and the painstaking analyses of the questions asked to assure their relevance to the captain and lieutenant positions." Only after fearing it might be the subject of a lawsuit, not out of due consideration of the relevance of the exam to select the best officers did the…

Federalism and Religious Freedoms: The Importance of and the Adherence to the Separation of Church and State in a Multicultural Environment

Although it is clear that many religious concepts were embedded into the original drafting of the Constriction and the Nation's laws, maintaining a separation of church and state in the official capacity allowed the country to prosper in many ways. Having civil laws that govern beyond religious controls allows for a level of stability that can accommodate many difference ideologies.

Federalism and Religious Freedoms

A Federalist design works to protect religion and religious leaders by allowing them to operate freely without any state intervention.

Main Point

• Although religions receive many protections, there are many issues that put the church and state at odds when the religious ideology conflicts with the secular freedoms which have been present since the founding in varying forms and degrees; obvious examples in today's…

civil rights since Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. There are three references used for this paper.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis in 1968 as he was fighting for civil rights in America. Since that time, the country has seen changes in how minorities are treated.

Some of these changes have been positive, while others have had a negative effect on the progression of the civil rights movement.

Positive Changes

The Civil Rights movement has seen some positive changes since the death of Martin Luther King, Jr. There are no longer segregated drinking fountains or waiting rooms in public areas. The Black community no longer fears being evicted from their homes because they chose to vote (unknown 1997).

Congressman John Lewis stated on the 40th Anniversary of the Civil Rights movement that "because of the work and sacrifices of many, we are a better people (unknown 1997)."…

Civil rights can be delineated as the very basic and fundamental rights to be free from unequal treatment, on the basis of particular attributes that are considered important, for instance gender, race, and also disability. The Bill of Rights protects all citizens of the nation against the infringement of their rights and liberties by any entity and even the state, as it is assured in the Constitution. One of the key civil rights discussed and debated in the United States in the present day encompasses the rights of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning community (LGBTQ) (Newton, 2014).

Describe the observed political event in detail, including the environment and people involved

The event I attended was a political protest that covered the annual gay rights march. In particular, the parade was in search of shedding some light on the gay rights. The individuals that participated in the parade…

By the late 1970s, the Cold War had wound down, and the Soviets posed less of a threat than they had over the past three decades. Many civil rights for blacks, women, and minorities in America had been won during the Cold War. Many other hard fights were still to come, but ultimately, the Cold War marked the height of American fear of aggression, and American gains in civil rights.

In conclusion, the Cold War was a major contributor to civil rights for a number of reasons. Civil rights were hard won, and many people gave their lives in the ultimate sacrifice to obtain freedom and equality. Civil rights came about for a number of reasons, but pressure from world forces on American democracy was one reason that civil rights became so important to many political leaders. Without pressure from much of the world, civil rights may have been even…

Because of the fact that they ae Negos, they have been oppessed and intimidated on seveal occasions. Malcolm X also makes some histoical claims when demanding the civil ights. He states that Nego evolt has been going on since 1945 in the whole wold and in 1964 will see that it then emeges to be a black evolution. He claims that this evolution has been happening in Asia, Afica and Latin Ameica fo the not white individuals. The blacks who wee colonized by the Euopeans I Asia have been involved in the stuggle fo since 1945. Fo the Mexican-Ameican stuggle fo equality also involves some histoical statement especially in 1965 when efeing to Cesa Chavez who has had majo contibution fo the La Raza Unida quest fo the ights though non-violent means.

Reason fo the timing of the civil ights demands

In the Montgomey bus boycott, the people ae demanding…

hen then Governor George allace ordered state troopers to disband the marchers, using tear gas, clubs and whips, President Lyndon Johnson federalized the National Guard and the march continued (Modern 157). The national media coverage of these events led Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which outlawed discriminatory voter-registration tests, and authorized federal registration of persons and federally administered voting procedures in any political subdivision or state that discriminated electorally against a particular group (Modern 157).

Nine days after the assassination of King on April 4, 1968, Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1968, which banned discrimination in most housing and provided penalties for those attempting to interfere with individual civil rights, thus adding protection for civil rights workers and others (Modern 157). Additional legislation added enforcement provisions to the federal government's rules concerning discriminatory mortgage-lending practices, which means that all lenders must report to the…

Hostile ork Environment: According to the 1993 decision of the United States Supreme Court in "Harris v. Forklift Systems Inc.," hostile environment harassment occurs when "the workplace is permeated with discriminatory intimidation, ridicule, and insult that is sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of the victim's employment and create an abusive working environment" (Cross and LeRoy Miller 497). Facts of the Case: In 1986, Teresa Harris, who was employed as a rental manager with Forklift Systems, Inc., complained about comments and behaviors directed to her by Forklift's president, Charles Hardy. She claimed that Hardy's sexually harassing conduct caused her to suffer PTSD-like symptoms and that she was ready to resign when Hardy apologized and claimed he was only kidding. Later, after concluding that the harassment would not stop, she left Forklift and filed her complaint with the EEOC. The case was eventually heard by a U.S. magistrate judge…

Civil Rights

The 1960s was a period that Americans remember as being a period bursting with activities and movements. There was a lot that these years brought out. Some of the things that the period is remembered for are the many movements, including the civil rights and hippies movements, evolution of art and music and a promotion of love and peace with activism against the war in Vietnam. There were many uprisings in the society, especially in terms of culture, with regard to politics and socially as well. As a result of this, a lot of change was experienced in society. The movements for the rights of African-Americans became very strong during this period and forced the then president Lyndon Johnston to push for a Civil Rights Act, which was enacted in 1964 by Congress.

Although the enactment of this Act was welcomed, it was not sufficient and thus, more…

Q3. What was the purpose of Prohibition? Which groups and areas generally supported the movement? Why?
The purpose of Prohibition was ostensibly to reduce alcohol-related crimes and the suffering perpetrated by alcoholism on individuals, families (particularly women and children), and society as a whole. The Temperance Movement was widely supported by women’s rights activists and abolitionists throughout its existence. Yet it was largely made up of rural, native-born Protestants and there was also a strong anti-immigrant sentiment within the movement. The virulently racist Klu Klux Klan, for example, also supported Prohibition.
In urban locations, the sentiment towards Prohibition was far different. In general, religion was less influential in cities, and many people profited from selling alcohol. Also, for European immigrants, particularly those from Catholic countries, alcohol had a very important place in their cultural worldview. Although Prohibition may have seemed like a benign attempt to protect women and children from…

civil rights legislation that seeks to safeguard individuals with disabilities from discrimination and guarantees that disabled children have equal access to an education. However, every child may be entitled for special education and associated services under Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). One of the major issues with the two legislations is that entitlement to special education and associated services under IDEA and entitlement for protection under Section 504 are not disability-specific. This contributes to concern on who is entitled for protections under Section 504 but not within IDEA.

The determinations of eligibility for special education and associated services and for protection from discrimination are specific to every disabled child. The knowledge of IDEA and Section 504, especially their execution regulations, is usually necessary for obtaining suitable education for children with disabilities. Every child eligible for special education services under the IDEA statute is safeguarded under Section 504. This implies…

Much like African-American leaders and reformers that brought about the end of racial discrimination and segregation via the Civil Rights Movement, in 1866, Stanton created the American Equal Rights Association, aimed at organizing women in the long fight for equal rights. In 1868, the U.S. Congress ratified the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution which "defined citizenship and voters as male" and excluded women; in 1870, Congress ratified the Fifteenth Amendment which also excluded women in favor of African-American males ("The History of Women's Suffrage," Internet).

At this point, the women's movement split into two factions, the National Woman

Suffrage Association, headed by Stanton and Susan . Anthony, and the American Woman Suffrage Association, a more conservative organization headed by Julia Ward Howe and Lucy Stone. y 1890, these two opposing factions joined forces to create the National American Woman Suffrage Association under the leadership of Elizabeth Cady Stanton (Gurko, 145).…

Under the new policy, the United States was committed to keep all commitments to treaties, provide a shield if nuclear power threatens the freedom of an ally or a nation that is important to U.S. security, and, in cases of other aggression, supply military economic assistance in accordance with treaty commitments, but should look to the nation threatened to assume primary responsibility to provide its own manpower for its defense. The goal was to reduce U.S. aid as the other country strengthens its own military for protection against attack.

Each of these movements created feelings that action was needed to force the government to enforce the laws they had created. Some of them took actions in protests, some in advocating for certain rights, and some took actions using violence. Where women took actions to advocate for women's rights, youth took actions of rebellion against traditions and voicing discontent and disagreement…

Social equity is concept that can be difficult to grasp, not only because it means different things to different people, but also because people frequently confuse the concept of equity with the concept of equality. While equality is an understandable social goal, it is important to realize that equality tends to be relative. For example, giving someone equal legal rights to a person from a different social, cultural, or financial background may result in very different results, so that facial equality may actually reinforce the basic inequities that drive discrimination. That is why the concept of social equity goes beyond equality and "implies fair access to livelihood, education, and resources; full participation in the political and cultural life of the community; and self-determination in meeting fundamental needs" (Ecotrust, 2014). To achieve those goals, it is clear that social equity necessarily has two faces: civil rights and economic rights.

To understand…

Civil Rights

African-American and Mexican-American

Civil Rights in Texas

This essay discusses African-American and Mexican-American civil rights in Texas. The goal is to discover what some of the key events was in each the African-American and the Mexican-American battles for their group's civil rights. The secondary objective is to see how these movements resembled each other and how they differed from one another and if one was more effective than the other. As the United States and its individual states like Texas become more racially diverse, all new criteria will arise that may be more closely linked to India's caste system than to what we understand and take for granted here in the United States. Economic barriers and not racial barriers are gradually becoming the underlying motivator of the civil rights movement. In other words, being black or Mexican will not matter in regard to civil rights. If the respective…

Civil ights: The ole of Black Churches

The audience will understand the role that black churches played in the ongoing Civil ights Movement.

In this speech, I will show that black churches -- through methods of advocacy, spiritual leadership and active participation -- play a significant role in the ongoing Civil ights Movement that began in the mid-20th century and clearly continues on into today's times.

Everyone knows of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the important role he played in the Civil ights Movement. But how many people know about or realized that King was one of many black pastors to bring black churches into the Movement, providing leadership, spiritual nourishment, and advocacy to African-Americans struggling for equality? Or that black churches continue today to be part of that ongoing struggle? Just as black churches are making an impact in cities around the country where communities are torn by racial…

American Civil ight Movement

Compare and contrast the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) on the basis of their leadership, philosophy, and tactics.

Philosophy

Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) was a civil rights organization that was initiated by African-Americans in 1957 (Fairclough, 2001). The movement was primarily aimed at ending the segregation and discrimination against the black African population in the U.S. The core philosophy of SCLC revolved around to seek civil rights and economic justice for the people of Southern States having majority of African-Americans.

Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) actually aimed achieving same objectives as those of SCLC but through non-violent sit-in and defiance of segregated dining and lunch services. The core philosophy of SNCC was also eliminating segregation but the mission statement was narrower compared to SCLC.

Leadership

The most prominent leader of SCLC was Martin Luther King, Jr. Other prominent…

Board of Education of Topeka. This case represented a watershed for Civil ights and helped to signal an end to segregation because it determined that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal" (Warren, 1954). It is essential to note that federal support on this particular issue was only earned after African-Americans decided to use the legislative system to their advantage by taking the segregationist school system of Topeka, Kansas to task. This particular court case was a class action lawsuit filed on behalf of 13 parents whose children were enrolled in the city's school system. This action was highly influential in the African-American struggle for civil rights and to end discrimination because it demonstrated that they had learned the most effective means of fighting this systemic oppression -- by utilizing the system itself, in this instance, the legislative system that ran the country.

By doing so, African-Americans helped to end the…

passing of the civil rights protection of homosexuals. This paper presents the views and reasons of the people who oppose the passing of this act. This paper then demonstrates the importance of the passing of this act and how it would benefit the society at large. The paper also highlights certain quotes to support its claim.

Civil Rights Protection of Homosexuals Human beings claim to represent a society that is not only civilized but also just in its ways. hen we as humans can fight for animal's rights, than we can certainly work for the civil rights protection of the homosexuals, who still belong to the category of human beings. Discrimination on the basis of race, class and sexual orientation must be eliminated as much as possible. Man, a creature of God has not been given the liberty to judge between right and wrong. As the bible has said, "There…

Every step of the African-American journey was a small one but it took a great of steps to make any headway. Mama knew this and wanted alter to realize it and be proud of his past so he could be proud of his future.

Dreams help us define people. e can see how the pre-civil rights mindset affected alter's mother as she understands the difficulties of her people and when she sees an opportunity to improve her family's situation, she takes it. She fights with alter because she watched her husband work long days. She knows what alter cannot and when he begins to whine she tells him, "e was going backward 'stead of forwards -- talking about killing babies and wishing each other was dead . . . hen it gets like that in life -- you just got to do something different, push on out and do something…

e are supported in this by a statement which Justice Kennedy made during a 2003 Supreme Court case on the subject, wherein the Justice observed that "gay people have a 'liberty under the Due Process Clause [that] gives them the full right to engage in [intimate] conduct without intervention of the government.'

No matter how unpopular a group's sexual norms, he explained, the government may not 'demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime.'" (Masci, 1) This would essentially acknowledge that discrimination against the rights of homosexuals qualifies as a form of civil rights violation, strengthening the legal precedent now becoming an ever greater likelihood. Those parties who have objected have also shown a great deal of resolve, as suggested by their victory in the typically left-leaning state of California. Primarily, this denotes that on both sides of the issue, parties are politically…

 1. Describe the impediments to, and reasons for, the development of civil rights from 1877 to 1940. 
Reconstruction had failed, leading to unresolved issues and the entrenchment of racist institutions in the social, economic, and political fabric of American life. After the formal end of Reconstruction in 1877, many impediments to civil rights were in fact legal but also ideological. Due to the lack of formal legal protections for African Americans, civil rights movements remained critical, particularly given the sinister nature of Jim Crow.
2. Discuss some of the major laws and events related to civil rights since 1940. 
World War Two did have a major bearing on civil rights legislation, particularly as it led to the de-segregation of the American armed forces in 1948. The 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v Board of Education was also a major event signaling a shift in civil rights law in America.…

How Racism and Discrimination Affects ‘Civil Rights’ and Student Rights
Racism is the belief that one race is superior to another. It can result in prejudice and discrimination towards people based on their ethnicity and color. Discrimination is the treatment of people in an unfair manner based on their characteristics such as sexual orientation, age, race and gender. Racism is a type of prejudice that most countries fight, do not tolerate and hotly discuss. Countries such as Brazil had once categorized themselves as racial democracies. They allowed people who were racially indifferent to live side-by-side. Such countries are now experiencing the harsh reality of historic and entrenched racism. Some people argue that class and not race is the main cause of social distinction. This is because racism has become illegal officially from forms of overt racism such as abuse on social media and killing of unarmed blacks by police, especially…

C. Mayor Adrian Fenty made HIV / AIDS the most important public health priority (Greenberg et al., 2009). Funding from the CDC allowed for a partnership between the D.C. Department of Health's HIV / AIDS Administration and the George Washington University School of Public Health and Healthy Services, which was responsible for the Epidemiology Annual eport for 2007 -- the first to be published for D.C. since 2002 (Greenberg et al., 2009). The Department of Health also initiated a routine HIV screening campaign to help provide testing resources and lower stigma, titled "Come Together DC -- Get Screened for HIV" (Greenberg et al., 2009).

Efforts to address the epidemic in D.C. included a combination of increased resource availability and educational services as offered by public health departments. The "Come Together DC -- Get Screened for HIV" campaign provided approximately 73,000 tests in 2008, which was a 70% testing increase from…

political, social, and civil rights as they are, the notion of possible futures haunts nearly everyone. Potential political realities in the present and not-so-distant future are examined in Margaret Atwood's Handmaid's Tale and Marge Piercy's Woman on the Edge of Time. These novels have become modern classics precisely because of their poignant relevance to real-world social and political affairs. Although both Atwood's and Piercy's novels are at least in part set in future times, both tales are devoid of any significant characteristics that distinguish them from the present day reality. Thus, both The Handmaid's Tale and Woman on the Edge of Time eerily depict life in modern-day America even as they bridge gaps in time. In particular, issues related to gender and to political power are salient in both books. Through the core elements of their narratives, The Handmaid's Tale and Woman on the Edge of Time reveal that male-dominated…

Civic EngagementThe right to vote is a constitutional one in the US and it was passed by Congress in 1869: it ensured that everyone had the right, regardless of race, creed or color. Yet nearly a century later in the US, people were still being segregated and discriminated against because of race, creed and color. Why? The reason is that the power structure in the US did not want certain types of people voting or having influence or power of their own. It is why many immigrant communities were broken up by federal plans to create new interstate roads. It is why there have only been two Catholic presidents and one black one in the nations more than 200-year history. The US has always been a fundamentally WASP-driven affair, with help from elite (often Jewish) families that dominate banking, finance, and media. There is no room in that paradigm for…

Coming of Age in Mississippi" by Anne Moody

In her article "Coming of Age in Mississippi," dating from 1968, Anne Moody tells the story of her participation in a blood shed sit-in demonstration at Woolworth's lunch counter. She was a student at Toogalo College in Jackson Mississippi, member of the NAACP (the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People). The Association, under the leadership of John Salter, Moody's social science professor, undertook a boycott in public stores as one of the numerous forms of manifestation within the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi. The story begins with three young African-American students were peacefully asking for the right to be served at the same lunch counter where the whites were sitting.

With a lack of sentimentality and with deliberate detachment, Moody succeeds to present a realistic picture of the heaviest segregated place on earth in the sixties, Jackson, Mississippi. Moody, along…

Black Wax Museum

Young Civil ights Advocates at the National Great Blacks in Wax Museum

One of the most powerful images from the National Great Blacks in Wax Museum is that of two young children standing behind a sign that reads "We are not afraid." Behind them stands a tall figure hooded in the sinister white costume of the Ku Klux Klan. The photos that serve as the backdrop to this display show how African-Americans had to fight for basic rights that were already enjoyed by whites. The children are a sad reminder that racial prejudice was directed towards people of all ages, no matter how innocent they were. The children's sign is a reminder that African-Americans showed courage in the face of prejudice, and even children took bold steps to secure their rights and the rights of others.

In the display, the children appear to be of elementary school…

Freedom and Equality in the 20th century

AN UN-ENDING FIGHT

Two Primary Methods against Segregation Policies

The Civil Rights Movement of African-Americans in the United States, also called the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, consisted of mass actions, aimed at ending racial discrimination and segregation against them (Tavaana, 2015). At the same time, it aimed at acquiring legal recognition and federal protection of their rights as citizens, as enshrined in the Constitution and federal law. The Movement was particularly active in the South between 1954 and 1968 (Tavaana).

The two primary methods used by the Movement in pursuing its ends were non-violent protests and civil disobedience (Tavaana, 2015). These and other campaigns were forms of civil resistance. They triggered crises and induced the holding of meaningful talks between them and government authorities. These initiatives were effective in the federal, state, and local levels of government as well as businesses and communities.…

It can also be confusing. Some states have gay marriage as a legal right. Others have domestic partnerships, civil unions, and other terms for things that are the same or similar (Herek, 2006). Whether these options are constitutional is also something that has to be addressed and that is argued about by many scholars and laypeople (Herek, 2006). One of the other concerns that is brought to light where civil unions and their benefits are concerned is how employers view 'spouses' and what kinds of requirements are listed for them to be able to receive benefits (Same, 2008). Depending on how these people are listed, employers may or may not have to accommodate homosexuals and their partners in states that allow for gay marriages and civil unions.

As can be seen by the following map, not all states believe in any type of same-sex civil union or gay marriage, but…

In the North, however, abolitionists groups began to see slavery another way. Finally, when Lincoln -- who was perceived as anti-slavery -- was elected, the South fought to exercise what it believed were its states rights by seceding.

After the war concluded, these cultural and economic differences were not gone with the wind. Instead, they were prominent during reconstruction and continue to characterize the culture of the North and South today. McElrath's timeline of reconstruction shows several attempts at making the South racially equal, which can be defined as one of the goals of reconstruction. The Civil Rights Bill and 14th amendment were methods by which this was accomplished. However, Civil ar era culture has left such an impact on the region as to make race relations in the American South still stereotypically tenacious.

orks Cited

Kelly, Martin. "Top Five Causes of the Civil ar." About.com 2009. 26 July 2009.…

Civil ar

The ar

Economic and social differences between the North and the South, states' rights verses federal rights, the fight between the proponents of slavery and abolitionists, and the election of Abraham Lincoln all contributed to the Civil ar. However, all of these causes can trace their roots in the institution of slavery. The major reason the southern states succeed was to maintain slavery, the conflict over western lands was about slavery, Lincoln couldn't maintain the union because of slavery, and the production of cotton demanded slavery.

Ultimately, though both sides claimed to want to achieve their objectives peacefully, the South viewed the North as a threat to its way of life, while the North preferred war rather than let the nation perish.

Slavery

It seems incredible today that the institution of slavery was only abolished less than a century and a half ago. The idea that one person…

Right to Counsel

In the United States, the right to counsel is guaranteed by the 6th Amendment to the Constitution. Right to counsel is the civil right of an accused person to seek the aid of an individual who is an expert in the law of the land. Often when a person finds him or herself in a position where they are a defendant in either a civil or criminal court, they need to utilize the skills of someone who understands the law. ithout this right, the accused would be at a decided disadvantage against prosecution who are trained and employed in the field of the law. The present law of the United States is that a person may employ an attorney to represent him or her in a court. If a person is unable to afford an attorney, then counsel will be appointed to that person and paid for…

One of the fundamental issues taking place in the United States in the present day encompasses the aspect of civil liberties and civil rights for all individuals and groups. A particular aspect in consideration is the lack of fairness and equity for black people in the United States. In the contemporary, there continues to be heated debate and arguments made regarding how the African-American group of people are being treated in the nation. In particular, the issue in this regard encompasses the recent verdict made by a jury ruling that Jeronimo Yanez, a police officer in Minnesota was not guilty for shooting and killing Philando Catile. Imperatively, castile was killed by the police officer during a routine traffic stop while with his girlfriend and child (Miller, 2017).

Observed Political Event

The observed political event is a political rally and speech made by Valerie, Philando Castile's mother subsequent to the verdict…

In 1834, the British Empire abolished slavery (the Civil War Home Page, 2009). Great Britain had remained one of the United States' largest trading partners and was, at that time, still the most influential nation in the world. Moreover, Great Britain had retained slavery after many other countries ended the practice. The end of slavery in Great Britain also meant that those in the North who wanted the abolition of slavery could support their assertions that the world viewed the United States as backwards and barbarous because of the practice of slavery. Moreover, it certainly changed the potential for allies in the Civil War. Though not a monarchy, the South was an aristocracy and both Britain and France were then-ruled by monarchies. As long as the struggle was about a states-right government rebellion, the root cause of that rebellion, slavery, could be ignored and European countries could provide aid to…

In some ways, the Civil War was the analogue of the Terror for Americans: It was the bloodthirsty incestuous violence that allowed the nation to move onward to a full embrace of democracy, joining itself to Europe as the world began to tip toward democratic ideas and ideals.

White Supremacy

Stephen Kantrowitz's biography of Benjamin Tillman demonstrates how he can be seen as a symbol for an entire cohort of Southerners of his generation, people (mostly but not exclusively men) who could neither understand nor tolerate the new order that had formally instituted itself after Emancipation. They could not understand a world in which black men were suddenly their legal equals. Tillman, and others like him, lived in a world that told them that blacks had to be treated like equals even though many white Southerners did not see their black compatriots as even being fully human.

This set up…

civil war on the American economics, military and diplomatic ties. The paper will discuss the effects of the victory of the Unions and the defeat of the Confederates.

Civil War

The victory of the North in the American Civil War put an end to slavery and to the South's effort to secede from the Union. The years during which the Civil War settlement continued to be contested are known as the econstruction period. econstruction lasted roughly from the end of the war in April 1865 to the withdrawal of the last federal troops from the South in April 1877.

Effects of Civil War

The most important result of the Civil War was the liberation of nearly 4 million Southern slaves. The sudden release of so many people would have been a tremendous problem even in an atmosphere free from the bitterness that had been created by a civil war. Postwar…

right" embodies the notion that one has the sovereignty to act without obtaining the permission of others (Lea, 2004). This concept carries an implicit unstated postscript with it in that one may exercise one's rights as long as one does not violate the individual rights of others. Individual rights pertain to the rights that are deemed universal to all people regardless of any group affiliations they may have. For example freedom of speech is considered a universal individual right in many societies. Governments are formed to protect the individual rights of all, but at the same time restrict some rights to ensure equality.

Collective rights refer to the rights that groups have, or to the rights held only by those individuals within a specified group (Lea, 2004). For instance, a certain group of indigenous people may lay claim to certain rights such as the right to live on native lands…

Three major industries emerged: cotton, tobacco and iron. It's arguable that the cotton and tobacco industries did not stray far from their antebellum roots; however, the majority of the factories were funded by Northern investors. No different was the emerging iron and steel industry of the post-Civil War South - by the early 1900s, the factories were owned almost exclusively by the Northern Andrew Carnegie (Schultz, Tishler).

The emergence of factories did more than impact society as a whole with a race to the cities; race relations were impacted as well. The majority of the new factory jobs were held by whites, with blacks doing only unskilled labor. Mill owners justified the hiring of all whites as making up for the antebellum disparity that had existed when blacks had the majority of agricultural "jobs," if their former slave labor could be called that. At the political level, after the ratification…

The first route entails that the House and the Senate must each ratify the proposed Amendment by a two-thirds majority. Then the bill must be ratified by three-fourths of the states' legislatures within a reasonable time period. The second method would be for the creation of a Constitutional Convention to hear and propose the amendment to the states; this method also requires three-fourths of the state legislatures to approve the amendment. This second procedure has never before been used to amend the U.S. Constitution. In either case, however, it would take a number of years before the Amendment for Total Equality would become law. Furthermore, consitutional amendments are historically rare, and the proposals signficantly outnumbers the legal amendments. Several steps can be taken to ensure the timely implementation of this much-needed constitutional amendment.

Proponents of the proposed Amendment for Total Equality have a steep uphill battle to climb. The tide…

As a part of its responsibility to monitor federal agency compliance with Section 501, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) collects and compiles data regarding agencies' hiring and advancement of workers with disabilities. At the time of hiring, federal agencies provide employees the opportunity to self-disclose that they have a disability, on a Standard Form 256 (SF-256); the numbers of people who so identify are reported to the EEOC. In1979, EEOC officially designated certain disabilities as targeted disabilities in its Management Directive 703 issued on December 6, 1979, which in 2003 was superseded by Management Directive 715. MD 715 defines targeted disabilities as "Disabilities that the federal government, as a matter of policy, has identified for special emphasis in affirmative action programs. They are: 1) deafness; 2) blindness; 3) missing extremities; 4) partial paralysis; 5) complete paralysis; 6) convulsive disorders; 7) mental retardation; 8) mental illness; and 9) distortion…

Civil Liberties and Temporary Security: Billy Budd and Guardians

"People willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither." Benjamin Franklin's statement is often invoked in times of warfare, when civil liberties tend to be most at risk of curtailment, yet it crucially fails to describe the one sector of the American population that is most involved in warfare: the military. Historically military service has not exactly been the voluntary affair it currently is. During the U.S. Civil War cities like New York and Philadelphia would have riots over Lincoln's imposition of a military draft; the First and Second World wars would see the invention of "conscientious objector" status, and Vietnam made "dodging the draft" a generational meme among baby boomers. But leaving aside the question of whether or not military conscription is a gross violation of civil liberties -- to some extent, this depends upon the culture, as…

Right to Die Cases

The very public, legal and ultimately political saga of Terri Schiavo brought not only national but international attention to the right to die issues and echoed a similar battle which took place some fifteen years earlier concerning Nancy Cruzan.

In "Cruzan, by her Parents and Co-Guardians v. Director, Missouri Department of Health, 497 U.S. 261,' the United States Supreme Court concurred with the lower court's ruling on June 25, 1990 (Cruzan pp).

Petitioner Nancy Beth Cruzan was rendered incompetent as a result of severe injuries sustained during an automobile accident on the night of January 11, 1983 (Cruzan pp). Paramedics restored her breathing and heartbeat at the accident site when she was discovered without detectable respiratory or cardiac function (Cruzan pp). She was transported to a hospital in an unconscious state where an attending neurosurgeon diagnosed her as having sustained probably cerebral contusions compounded by significant…

Civil ar

After the last shots of Civil ar were heard, and following the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation by President Lincoln, the South had been humiliated and devastated. The repercussions of war included loss of life, land, and livelihood. Patriarchy and racism remained entrenched, but the emancipation of slaves significantly transformed the social landscape of the South. Liberated slaves started from scratch without access to cultural or social capital, and many eventually migrated North. African-American culture was able to emerge, and in many cases, to flourish. Meanwhile, the white power structures in the South resigned themselves to ignorance, causing the South to remain the most backwards, uneducated, and poor region of the United States for over a century. Far from inspiring the South to transform its social, cultural, economic, and political institutions, the entrenched plantation society and Confederate identity took deep root there. Jim Crow symbolizes the extent to…