The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights

Volume 8 no. 1

LEADERSHIP CONFEERENCE ON CIVIL RIGHTS HONORS RALPH G. NEAS WITH THE
HUBERT H. HUMPHREY CIVL RIGHTS AWARD

On May 3, 1995, at its Annual National Board Meeting and Civil Rights Award Dinner, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights honored its retiring Executive Director Ralph G. Neas with the Hubert H. Humphrey Award for his devotion to civil rights. More t han 1000 people attended the dinner including Attorney General Janet Reno and other administration officials and members of Congress. Richard Womack, Director of the AFL-CIO Department of Civil Rights, will serve as acting director of LCCR until a perman ent replacement is found.

Ralph Neas has served as Executive Director of LCCR since 1981, and Executive Director of the Leadership Conference Education Fund since 1983. Karen McGill Arrington, the deputy director of LCEF will replace Ralph as Executive Director of LCEF.

The dinner also marked LCCR's 45th anniversary and a souvenir journal included articles on the history of LCCR, LCEF, and in commemoration of Neas' 14 years of service. An article on the Neas Years at LCCR, by Dorothy Height, LCCR Chair, states:

When Ralph Neas took over the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights in March of 1981, Ronald Reagan had just been sworn in as President and Senators Strom Thurmond and Orrin Hatch had just replaced Senators Edward Kennedy and Birch Bayh as chairs of the S enate Judiciary Committee and Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution. Needless to say, the situation in the Spring of 1981 demanded bipartisanship, creativity, pragmatism, and most importantly, strong leadership. Ralph and his LCCR colleagues showed an abundance of these qualities during the arduous eighteen month campaign to enact the 1982 Voting Rights Act Extension. When the final bill passed both Houses with substantial bipartisan support, (389 to 24 in the House and 85 to 8 in the Senate) Preside nt Reagan had no choice but to sign the historic measure into law. That law not only extended the Voting Rights Act for 25 years, but also extended the Act's bilingual assistance provisions and overturned a 1980 Supreme Court decision by reinstating the results standard in the Voting Rights Act.

This initial victory against great odds set the tone for the remainder of the "Neas Years." Given the political environment of the 1980s, who would have believed that more than 2 dozen LCCR legislative priorities would be enacted? Among the ma ny other legislative successes during Ralph's tenure in office are the Civil Rights Act of 1991, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1988, the Japanese-American Redress Bill, the Civil Rights Restoration Act as well as the defeat of Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork. Most recently, Ralph was a key strategist in the successful effort to defeat the Balanced Budget Constitutional Amendment.

In late May, Ralph will embark on a new phase of his professional life. He will join the Washington law firm of Fox, Bennett, and Turner, where he will be Of Counsel. There he will set up an affiliate, The Neas Group, which will provide strategic counse ling to business and non-profit institutions. In addition, Ralph will be a part-time Visiting Professor at the Georgetown University Law Center where he will continue sharing his knowledge of the legislative process. Ralph has also agreed to serve as a consultant to the LCCR and continue to coordinate its campaign in support of affirmative action.

Richard Womack currently represents the AFL-CIO on the Executive Committee of LCCR. At the AFL-CIO, Mr. Womack is the primary spokesperson on a broad range of social issues involving worker rights, human rights and civil rights. Prior to joining the AFL -CIO Civil Rights Department, he was employed by the AFL-CIO Human Resources Development Institute (HRDI) as Assistant Director where he was responsible for the training, evaluation and supervision of field staff located in 55 cities and was a Field Coord inator for the AFL-CIO Appalachian Council. He is a member of the NAACP's National Board of Directors and the Board of The National Coalition on Black Voter Participation, and sits on the Executive Committee of the President's Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities, and the A. Philip Randolph Institute.

As deputy director of LCEF, Karen McGill Arrington served as project director for all of LCEF's endeavors including its Children's Campaign. She is a co-author of Talking To Our Children About Racism, Prejudice, and Diversity, and a contributing c o-editor of Voting Rights in America: Continuing the Quest for Full Participation. She also serves as the policy/research associate for the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. Arrington serves as an advisor to Family Communications Inc.'s Raci sm Project, Different and the Same, the Media Center for Children's Willoughby's Wonders Project, and the Philadelphia Campaign to Promote Intergroup Cooperation. She is editor of The Monitor and prior to joining the Leadership Conference s erved as the education monitor for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights before its reconstitution in 1983.