Claiming Our Democracy
The Covenant is in action all over the country. Under the extraordinary leadership of black leaders, organizations—for years and sometimes decades—have been advancing the goals identified in the best-selling book, the Covenant with Black America.
The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights exemplifies the spirit and pushes forward the agenda of the Covenant with Black America.
The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights is the nation's premier civil rights coalition, and has coordinated the national legislative campaign on behalf of every major civil rights law since 1957. Its mission is to promote the enactment and enforcement of effective civil rights legislation and policy. With a new strategy in place, LCCR plans to further their strong record of legislative achievement in 2007. What remains unchanged is uniting all Americans as one nation true to its promise of equal justice, equal opportunity and mutual respect.
Leadership Conference on Civil Rights
Excerpt from the Covenant with Black America
Prior to the Civil War, African Americans were almost totally disenfranchised throughout the states. Even after enactment of the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution, in 1870, which gave all men―regardless of race, color, or previous condition of servitude―the right to vote, many states continued to use various methods to prevent African Americans from voting, including literacy tests, poll taxes, the disenfranchisement of former inmates, intimidation, threats, and even violence. Also, until 1965, federal laws did not challenge the authority of states and localities to establish and administer their own voting requirements. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was a new beginning for African American citizens. For the first time, the federal government would require states to comply with the 15th Amendment.
And the Voting Rights Act has worked. African American registration and turnout rates have risen dramatically since 1965, when there were only five black representatives in Congress. Today, there are 43 members of the Congressional Black Caucus.
Despite this progress, African Americans have yet to achieve full equality in our democracy. We will reach our goal of equal opportunity when every voter has an equal opportunity to determine the distribution of political power. We can see that America, but we are not there yet. Today, at a time of bipartisan support for creating a multi-ethnic democracy in Iraq and across the globe, we need bipartisan support for a multi-ethnic democracy at home.
- excerpt from Wade Henderson's essay in the Covenant with Black America
To read the rest of this essay, please click here to buy the book.
WADE HENDERSON, Esq., is the Executive Director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR), Counsel to the LCCR Education Fund (LCCREF), and the Joseph L. Rauh, Jr., Professor of Public Interest Law at the David A. Clarke School of Law, University of the District of Columbia, Washington, DC. LCCR is the nation’s premier civil and human rights coalition created to promote the passage and implementation of civil rights laws designed to end discrimination and to achieve equal opportunity for all Americans. Before joining LCCR, Henderson was the Washington Bureau Director of the NAACP; before that, he was the Associate Director of the Washington National Office of the ACLU, where he began his career as a legislative counsel. For more information: http://www.civilrights.org.
Below are links to organizations working on voting, civic participation, and claiming our democracy. We will continue to add organizations, publications, and other resources to this list.
Leadership Conference on Civil Rights
Hip Hop Summit Action Network
The Center for Voting and Democracy
The Democracy Center
