Forty Years After the Civil Rights Act, Movement Leaders Celebrate Progress, Look to Future
Feature Story by civilrights.org staff - 7/1/2004
Civil rights leaders noted with irony last week that the 40th anniversary of landmark civil rights legislation also marked the introduction of a new bill designed to restore the 1964 Civil Rights Act and later legislation it inspired to Congress' original intent.Speaking on a panel of civil rights leaders commemorating the 1964 Act, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR) Executive Director Wade Henderson called for bipartisan support for FAIRNESS: The Civil Rights Act of 2004, legislation designed to restore the rights of women, seniors, individuals with disabilities, and minorities.
Henderson said the legislation was necessary given the erosion of key civil rights protections by an increasingly right-wing judiciary.
The panel was sponsored by Senator Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., and Congressman John Lewis, D-Ga., and moderated by historian and Pulitzer-prize winning author
Taylor Branch.
Panelists, who included Marcia D. Greenberger, co-president of the National Women's Law Center and Karen K. Narasaki, executive director of the National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium, noted that the 1964 Act remains vital and relevant today.
"Title VII has given women the opportunity to combat discrimination and to work toward their full earning potential," said Greenberger. "However, more must be done to address the considerable disparities and discrimination that women continue to face in the workplace."
"While we celebrate the passage of the 1964 Act, let us call on Congress and President Bush to show the same courage and leadership and strengthen and update our system of civil rights laws for this new century," Narasaki said, citing the Employment Nondiscrimination Act and the Local Law Enforcement Enhancement Act as examples of needed legislation.
Calling for bipartisan solutions, Henderson recalled congressional leaders from both parties who made the 1964 Act possible, including Democrats Hubert Humphrey, Phil Hart, and Emanuel Celler and Republicans Jacob Javits, Everett Dirkson, William McCullough, Charles "Mac" Mathias, and John Lindsay.
Congressional Black Caucus members announced they would mark the July 2 anniversary on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, at the site where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his historic "I Have a Dream" speech.
