In a dusty old attic in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Stephon Tull was rummaging through dilapidated boxes left there by his father many years before, when he came across an interesting find.
Martin Luther King III and Amb. Andrew Young discuss their efforts to make voting more accessible to Americans.
Viviette Applewhite, a 93-year-old African-American woman from Philadelphia, suddenly cannot vote. Although she once marched with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. for the right to do so, and has dutifully cast a ballot for five decades, in this election year she may be denied this basic right. Under Pennsylvania's new voter ID law, Applewhite is no longer considered eligible.
Erin Burnett talks to a city official who doesn't want Chick-fil-A in his district because of its stance on gay marriage.
Dan Cathy, the CEO of Chick-fil-A, proudly proclaimed his opposition to marriage equality and drew flak from politicians and citizens nationwide, who said Cathy's position made the chain unwelcome on their turf. Some of the condemnation crossed the line, offending the First Amendment. Some did not. Many don't understand where the line is, and now a population already sharply divided over same-sex marriage is collectively less informed about the First Amendment.
Congressional Republicans told a top Justice official Thursday his department is wrong to fight state voter ID laws and that the government needs to do more to ensure people serving abroad in the military are able to vote.
Vice President Joe Biden delivered a rousing address to the NAACP in Houston on Thursday, bolstering support for President Barack Obama and drawing sharp contrasts with the Republican Party on civil rights issues.
Texas state officials went to federal court Monday to defend a controversial new voter identification law, dismissing suggestions the requirement would deny hundreds of thousands of people -- many of them minorities -- access to the ballot.
Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX) on Texas looking to require voters to present photo ID at polls.
Attorney General Eric Holder promised Saturday to do all in his power to protect Americans' right to vote.
CNN's Carol Costello speaks with Tavis Smiley and Cornel West on the strict new ID rules that could keep many from polls.
In what have become known as the "Jesus pencil" and "candy cane" cases, the Supreme Court refused Monday to consider appeals from the families of elementary school students over distribution of religious-themed gifts on campus.
It wouldn't be an election year without Florida exhibiting its usual despicable efforts to keep residents from voting.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." This is the first line of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
A divided federal appeals court in Washington has upheld a key enforcement provision of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965.
As election 2012 heats up, the question of how corporations will figure into the first presidential election post-Citizens United is a hot topic.
George Zimmerman's brother tells Piers Morgan his brother had no choice but to shoot and kill Trayvon Martin.
The February 26 shooting of Trayvon Martin, a black teenager, by George Zimmerman, who is Hispanic, has in less than a month gone from a local story to a huge national story.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday began three days of potentially landmark oral arguments over the constitutionality of the sweeping health care law championed by President Barack Obama, with a majority of justices appearing to reject suggestions they wait another few years before deciding the issues.
The Supreme Court will hear landmark arguments over the future of health care reform. CNN's Kate Bolduan has a preview.
A controversial new Texas law requiring voters to present personal identification before going to the polls has been blocked by the Obama administration.
CNN's David Mattingly talks to Ben Jealous on the anniversary of the march on Selma.
Civil rights activists reenacting a 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, are doing more than just reliving an important part of American history -- they are bringing a new message to an old fight.
Democrats hold a contraception hearing in stark contrast to a GOP effort that included no women. CNN's Dana Bash reports.
Seven states on Thursday filed a lawsuit against the federal government requirement that religious employers offer health insurance coverage that includes contraceptives and other birth control services.
President Obama outlines the compromise reached with religious groups over the debate on contraceptives.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops denounced President Barack Obama's compromise over whether to require religiously affiliated institutions to provide contraception to female employees, saying the proposal raises "serious moral concerns," according to a statement posted on its website late Friday.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops denounced President Barack Obama's compromise over whether to require religiously affiliated institutions to provide contraception to female employees, saying the proposal raises "serious moral concerns," according to a statement posted on its website late Friday.
Civil rights leader Dr. Patricia Stephens Due died Tuesday at age 72, nearly 52 years after she played a leading role in student sit-ins in Tallahassee, Florida, her family said.
The state of South Carolina told a federal court in the nation's capital Tuesday it has a right to require voters to present a photo ID at the polls, despite opposition from the Obama administration's civil rights lawyers.
Every third Monday in January we gather as Americans to commemorate the values and beliefs -- as well as the ultimate sacrifice -- of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Tuesday, Attorney General Eric Holder delivers a major speech on voting rights at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library in Austin, Texas. The location is significant: In 1965, President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law, a landmark piece of civil rights legislation that banned the worst forms of racial discrimination in American elections.
Dorothy Cooper is a 96-year-old African-American resident of Chattanooga, Tennessee. She was born in a small town in northern Georgia before women could vote and when Jim Crow laws mandated racial segregation. Her life has spanned nearly a century of progress: The 19th Amendment extended suffrage to women, the Civil Rights movement led to the dismantling of segregation laws, and the Voting Rights Act outlawed overt racial discrimination in elections.
As expected, the Supreme Court has agreed to decide the constitutionality of the sweeping health care reform law championed by President Barack Obama.
The Supreme Court agrees to decide the constitutionality of the health care reform law championed by President Obama.
Today millions of people will go to the polls to vote in state and local elections. As they cast their ballot, they cast a vote for the most treasured aspect of our democracy. The voting booth is the one place where we are all equal -- all Americans are able to have an equal voice in determining the shape of our government.
Federal civil rights officials announced Monday they have sent election observers to locations in five states to keep an eye out for potential trouble at the polls Tuesday.
The Justice Department sent a letter to the Alabama's attorney general Friday asserting that federal civil rights lawyers have the authority to investigate Alabama schools for discrimination based on immigration status -- and will continue to do so.
The Cherokee Nation had difficulty electing its principal chief, so much so that members called in the Carter Center to observe the most recent vote and judge whether it was free and fair. We normally observe elections only in politically troubled countries abroad but believe that the contentiousness and fundamental voting rights issues at stake -- and not just for the Cherokees -- justified this exceptional mission.
Program Overview Through rare access to the Morehouse College Martin Luther King Jr. Collection, CNN's Soledad O'Brien examines the personal determination and private courage and concerns of the preacher and civil rights leader.
Civil rights icon Andrew Young speaks about the late Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, urging people to celebrate his life.
The Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, who helped lead the civil rights movement, has died, the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute said Wednesday. He was 89.
A 26-state coalition has asked the Supreme Court to decide the constitutionality of the massive health care reform legislation championed by President Barack Obama. The petition filed Wednesday virtually assures a landmark decision by June, in the thick of a presidential election year.
Arizona has become the latest jurisdiction to challenge continuing federal oversight over a key provision of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1965. Officials in Phoenix filed a lawsuit in federal court Thursday, saying requirements to preclear all local voting changes with the U.S. Justice Department are unconstitutional.
Several prominent civil rights groups filed a class action lawsuit Friday challenging Alabama's new anti-illegal immigration law, the latest such legal effort aimed at similar bills passed in various states.
Amid fears the United States risks default if lawmakers don't raise the debt ceiling on time, some are suggesting President Obama could save the day by big-footing Congress.
Rousing speeches by gifted orators such as Martin Luther King and Malcolm X were crucial to the struggle for civil rights in America.
Republican Michele Bachmann officially announces her bid for the presidency in her hometown, Waterloo, Iowa.
On Monday morning, U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann formally announced her candidacy for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination.
Joan Mulholland was watching television one day when something flashed across the screen that gave her chills.
The Supreme Court ruled that a Kansas church whose members travel the country to protest at military funerals, holding signs that say "Thank God for dead soldiers" and "God blew up the troops," has a right to continue such demonstrations.
Families are disappointed in a Supreme Court ruling that allows a church to picket military funerals.
Program Description: "Pictures Don't Lie: A Black in America Special" examines the hazy legacy of legendary photographer Ernest Withers, who helped advance the civil rights movement with his stunningly intimate black-and-white images. Withers was everywhere: in Dr. King's hotel room for strategy sessions, in the courtroom of the Emmett Till lynching murder trial, behind the scenes at the Memphis sanitation strike before Dr. King was assassinated. Now, just three years after his death, the reputation of the man dubbed "the original civil rights photographer" is in question. Withers may have led a double life as a paid FBI "racial informant." Caught in the middle of the firestorm are the children of Ernest Withers, who are disputing the charges and fighting to open the namesake museum that will display his historic images. The Withers children are speaking out for the first time with CNN anchor and special correspondent Soledad O'Brien. We will also speak to leaders of the civil rights
Long before today's antiterrorism efforts, the FBI spied on Americans, including those in the civil rights movement.
The hard-won fight for civil rights could go down as one of the most thoroughly archived periods in American history, largely because participants kept photos and objects that would later tell their stories.
In January, Rep. Steve King talks about his bill challenging birthright citizenship.
Many Latinos in the U.S. feel they're being targeted by a movement to change the 14th Amendment. Rafael Romo reports.
The Arizona Senate Judiciary Committee began holding hearings Monday afternoon on proposals to end birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment for U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants.
Those who were not there in the 60s and 70s, when Sargent Shriver was well known as an extraordinary member of an extraordinary family, should be duly impressed by the stories they are now hearing about his dynamic role in launching and leading both the Peace Corps, proposed by President Kennedy, and then President Johnson's War on Poverty.
Sargent Shriver, who launched the U.S. Peace Corps after marrying into the Kennedy family, has died.
The interpretation of complex legal verbiage is the Supreme Court's bailiwick, but sometimes the outcome of a case falls upon the meaning of single word. The magic word in an appeal argued Wednesday was "personal," and whether it extends beyond humans to "artificial" entities like corporations.
Casey Hayden knows something about hate.
Most would not consider civil rights the top concern of the nation's spies, but it was standing room only this week as hundreds gathered in the Central Intelligence Agency auditorium attentively listening to speeches on the civil rights movement.
A group of state legislators opposed to illegal immigration proposed a legislative "fix" Wednesday that would prevent children of illegal immigrants born in the United States from being citizens.
Former Alabama state trooper James Bonard Fowler, 77, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor manslaughter Monday in a civil rights-era murder case that was a catalyst for the 1965 Selma-Montgomery march, District Attorney Michael Jackson told CNN.
CNN's Anderson Cooper takes a look at the controversy surrounding Amazon.com and books defending pedophilia.
"The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure: A Child-Lover's Code of Conduct" was pulled from Amazon.com, a spokesman confirmed Thursday, after thousands of users posted angry comments and threats to boycott the site.
A member of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission walked out of a meeting Friday saying he and two other panelists have been denied a chance to fully discuss whether the Obama administration has been race-neutral in an investigation of alleged voter intimidation.
Bullying and harassment in schools often includes violations of federally protected civil rights, the federal government warned Tuesday in new guidelines for educators on how to address the problem.
Supreme Court justices cast a skeptical eye at a Texas death row inmate's novel efforts to have new DNA testing on old crime scene evidence in an effort to prove his innocence.
My faith tradition has always been inextricably bound with the tradition of the civil rights movement. The blood, sweat and tears of "the movement" have run through my life; they touched and entangled me with an indelible spirit of never giving up, always trying to serve.
Attorney General Eric Holder emphatically rejected Monday the charge that his Justice Department's Civil Rights Division considers the race of an alleged victim when deciding which cases to pursue.
A Justice Department official says the Voting Rights Act is selectively enforced. CNN's Jeanne Meserve reports.
A Justice Department lawyer testified Friday the department does not enforce certain voting law cases when the victims are white, and called the decision to drop a voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party "a travesty of justice."
A former Justice Department attorney who testified the department dropped charges of voter intimidation against the New Black Panther Party for political reasons says he expects his former boss to corroborate his claim in a hearing Friday.
Governments, world leaders and others were responding Friday to a Florida pastor's plan to burn copies of the Quran, the Muslim holy book, even amid confusion over whether it would go ahead. The Rev. Terry Jones, the head of a small church in Gainesville, called off the burning Thursday but later said he would "rethink" his position after a meeting with a local imam. Here's a sampling of global reaction:
The Rev. Terry Jones, the leader of a small congregation in Florida, recently announced he would burn copies of the Quran on September 11. A broad spectrum of figures in public life, including President Barack Obama and Gen. David Petraeus, urged him not to.
Rev. Terry Jones cancels a planned Quran burning, then says he'll "rethink" his position. CNN's John Zarrella reports.
The imam at the center of an ugly controversy over an Islamic center near New York's ground zero broke his silence Tuesday, just hours after a broad coalition of Christian, Jewish and Islamic leaders denounced what they described as a rising tide of anti-Muslim bigotry across the United States.
California Attorney General Jerry Brown files a motion for resumption of same-sex weddings in the state.
The institution of marriage is unique. It is the one institution that binds women and men together to form a family, and this serves broad societal purposes.
Civil rights leaders marking the 47th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech Saturday scorned a nearby Glenn Beck-led rally, saying it came with no message and with a presumption that King's famous discourse can be used as a conservative platform.
Rev. Al Sharpton speaks at his "Reclaim the Dream" event on the 47th anniversary of MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech.
CNN's Don Lemon speaks with Rev. Al Sharpton about the competing rallies between himself and Glenn Beck.
Conservative commentator Glenn Beck says his weekend revival-style rally at the Lincoln Memorial was meant to reclaim the U.S. civil rights movement "from politics," arguing that the movement was about "people of faith."
On the 47th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington on Saturday, the first sight on the National Mall for thousands of marchers was a four-story art installation that displayed four images and quotations of Martin Luther King Jr..
The Beck effect
updated: Sat Aug 28 2010 16:56:00
CNN's Brian Todd takes a look at talk show host Glenn Beck and his increasing clout in conservative circles.
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s niece is slated to speak Saturday at a controversial rally by radio talk show host Glenn Beck scheduled to take place in the same location as her uncle's "I Have a Dream" speech.
Very few things will make my skin crawl more than listening to someone totally misrepresent the famous "I Have A Dream" speech the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. gave on August 28, 1963.
"We are on the right side of history! We are on the side of individual freedoms and liberties and, dammit, we will reclaim the civil rights moment. We will take that movement -- because we were the people who did it in the first place." -- Glenn Beck, on his nationally syndicated radio program, May 26.
Justice Department lawyers investigating controversial Maricopa County, Arizona, Sheriff Joe Arpaio for alleged civil rights violations have extended for another week their demand for his lawyers to turn over documents and cooperate with their inquiry.
Many Republicans say change the 14th Amendment but Mike Huckabee disagrees. So does Rep. Luis Gutierrez, a Democrat.
Members of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission shouted at each other Friday over a controversial voting rights case.
Members of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission shouted at each other Friday over the Justice Department's decision to drop most of the charges in a 2008 incident in which black militants confronted voters at a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, polling place, leading to charges of voter intimidation.
Every time I think the Republican Party cannot get any more tone-deaf on issues involving race and equal rights, someone in leadership proves me wrong.
This month marks the anniversary of many historical milestones in the continuing effort to guarantee equal rights to all Americans.
The thing that is hard to miss in Ted Olson's Washington office are the quills. They're in a mug, all 56 of them, each commemorating an appearance before the Supreme Court. In many of those cases, he was the standard bearer for conservatives. And a successful one; he won 44 times.
Two prominent lawyers, conservative Ted Olson and liberal David Boies, team up to fight for gay marriage in California.
While Glenn Beck continues to pathetically assert that he is a modern day Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his listeners and viewers are the rightful heirs to the Civil Rights Movement he spearheaded, it may catch some by surprise that Tea Party leaders claim their movement is also one that is about advancing the civil rights of Americans.
Core supporters of the NAACP and the Tea Party are in a heated battle over race. CNN's Carol Costello reports.
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