LCCR Priorities & Victories
The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR), founded in 1950, is the nation's oldest and largest civil rights coalition, and has coordinated the national legislative campaign on behalf of every major civil rights law since 1957.
LCCR consists of nearly 200 national organizations, representing persons of color, women, children, labor unions, individuals with disabilities, older Americans, major religious groups, gays and lesbians and civil liberties and human rights groups. Its mission: to promote the enactment and enforcement of effective civil rights legislation and policy.
As a 501(c)(4) organization that engages in legislative advocacy, LCCR receives most of its operating support from its member organizations, the annual Hubert H. Humphrey Civil Rights Award Dinner and foundation, corporate and individual contributions.
Current Priorities
- Ensuring equal opportunity
- Protecting civil rights, civil liberties, worker protections, and equal opportunity
- Promoting civic engagement
- Building stronger communities and families
- Reforming the nation's criminal justice system
- Guarding the crossroads of civil rights and civil liberties
Our Victories
2000 and beyond – LCCR pushed for and won the passage of the first increase in the minimum wage since 1997; the Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, and Coretta Scott King Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendments Act of 2006, which restored the original Voting Rights Act of 1965 and reauthorized its expiring provisions; and the ADA Amendments Act, which reversed a number of Supreme Court decisions that had weakened the original Americans With Disabilities (ADA) Act of 1990.
1990s – LCCR pushed for and won the passage of the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990, and the Civil Rights Act of 1991, which reversed a number of Supreme Court decisions that had weakened the original Civil Rights Act of 1964.
1980s – LCCR led the successful campaign to keep controversial judicial nominee, Robert Bork, off of the U.S. Supreme Court.
1970s – LCCR pushed for and won the passage of the Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which prohibits gender discrimination in any educational program or activity receiving federal funding; Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in federally assisted programs; and The Age Discrimination Act of 1975, which prohibits discrimination based on age in programs or activities that receive federal funds.
1960s - LCCR pushed for and won the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968 —laws that shaped the future.
1950s - LCCR was founded in 1950 and pushed for and won the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957, the first federal civil rights law since Reconstruction.
Campaigns
Reclaim Civil Rights - A campaign to enhance awareness of the need for renewed federal commitment to robust civil rights enforcement and to further the understanding that rights without remedies are not rights at all.
Half in Ten - A multi-year campaign to move the country toward the achievable goal of cutting poverty in half in ten years by motivating the public and encouraging change at every level of government.
