On this week’s program, we hear a recent speech by the legedary political activist and consumer-rights advocate Ralph Nader. Nader outlines some of the most critical problems facing Americans ” including exorbitant military spending, out-of-control corporations, and thousands of annual deaths in the workplace, or from lack of health care coverage. But then he names some individuals who’ve made a …
Nadia Prupis – As ‘Muslim-Free Zones’ Flourish, Groups Demand DOJ Probe
A coalition of 82 civil liberties and human rights organizations, as well as faith-based groups and immigrant rights advocates, on Tuesday called on the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the growing number of businesses around the country declaring themselves ‘Muslim-free zones.’ Doing so violates the constitutional rights of American Muslims, particularly under Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, …
Leid Stories – 08.06.15
On the 50th Anniversary of the Voting Rights Act
Fifty years ago today, after a protracted civil-rights struggle that was both conciliatory and militant, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the Voting Rights Act of 1965 prohibiting all states from impeding or denying African Americans the right to vote. The legislation also strengthened existing antidiscrimination laws and gave new authority to the U.S. Attorney General to prosecute offending states.
Reflecting on the half-century since the passage of the VRA, Leid Stories observes the many ways in which both the letter and intent of the act have been violated. Moreover, the question central to the VRA and several related legal cases remains unanswered: Are African Americans citizens of the United States?
White America’s Greatest Delusion: “They Do Not Know It and They Do Not Want to Know It” – Tim Wise
Though perhaps overused, there are few statements that so thoroughly burrow to the heart of the nation’s racial condition as the following, written fifty-three years ago by James Baldwin: …this is the crime of which I accuse my country and my countrymen and for which neither I nor time nor history will ever forgive them, that they have destroyed and …