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Sipping a hot cup of unsweetened green tea at 3am, I felt compelled to revisit Dr Martin Luther King, Jr’s “I Have a Dream” speech on the internet. These excerpts leaped out at me. And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have...

In the Washington Post last week E.J. Dionne penned an Op-Ed piece noting the “changing” historical image of former President Lyndon Johnson and feted this development by labeling it as “…a thoroughly justified revival of Lyndon B. Johnson’s standing.” This work is not, however, a simple nostalgic tribute to the 1960s. Dionne argues that this supposed LBJ revival shows that America is experiencing what he calls a “leftward tilt” and he hopes that our current President will, like Johnson, strike while the iron is hot to force irrevocable liberal change on the USA. In his piece Dionne sings the praises...

Former President Jimmy Carter championed racial equality Tuesday evening, saying "there's no difference with people in the eyes of God" during a 50th anniversary celebration of the Civil Rights Act. Carter, 89, hailed the landmark 1964 law that outlawed discrimination against minorities and women as a stepping stone, but insisted there's still more work to do. "We're pretty much dormant now. We accept self-congratulations about the wonderful 50th anniversary — which is wonderful — but we feel like Lyndon Johnson did it and we don't have to do anything anymore," said Carter, the first president to speak at the three-day...

NEW YORK — A Staten Island community group says a project to raise the Bayonne Bridge violates the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 by exposing minority residents of the island's north shore to toxins without providing any offsetting economic benefits.

Dr. Ben Carson, professor emeritus of neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins University, is the latest would-be superstar for establishment conservatives. The good doctor gained immediate fame by coming out against gay marriage, in defiance of Obama. Black, accomplished, outspoken, and conservative–what’s not to like? Quite a bit actually, but for starters, take a look at his recent column entitled “I have a dream, 50 years later.” Regrettably, it will probably be another 100 years before we are able to discuss the real Martin Luther King, Jr. in polite society. Still, Carson is either astonishingly ignorant, or more likely gelded to come...

It was a historic moment at the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday as the justices heard a challenge to the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The landmark law spurred exponential growth in minority voting and is credited with getting many more minorities elected to office. But opponents say its time has passed, and the court's five conservative justices voiced strong doubts about the law's ongoing validity.

Racism: The once-proud NAACP has dissed a new African-American Republican senator as a token who knows nothing about civil rights because, well, he's a Republican — unlike, say, Democrats who opposed the Civil Rights Act. NAACP President Ben Jealous made the claim Wednesday concerning Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C. — the first black senator from the South since Reconstruction and the first black GOP senator since 1979, when Edward W. Brooke of Massachusetts retired. Indeed, Scott is only the seventh African-American ever to serve in the chamber. Jealous based his claim on Scott receiving an "F" on an NAACP scorecard of...

America's 1st Freedom, March 2011. More articles by Kopel on civil rights and gun control are available here. Jim Crow is alive and well. School children today are taught that “Jim Crow” was the name for a legal system of racial oppression, which began after Reconstruction, particularly in the South, and reached its nadir in the early 20th century. Children are also taught that Jim Crow was banished by legal reforms such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the 1954 Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education. Yet in one important part of American life, Jim Crow...

When a Neighborhood Watch guard shot Trayvon Martin in February 2012, a chorus of civil rights activists concluded that he had been killed because of his race. Michael Skolnick, the political director for hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons, spoke for the consensus in an article he titled, “White People You Will Never Look Suspicious.” I will never look suspicious to you. Even if I have a black hoodie, a pair of jeans and white sneakers on … I will never watch a taxicab pass me by to pick someone else up. I will never witness someone clutch their purse tightly against...

After writing about an MSNBC talking head's comment about the "niggerization of politics" yesterday, and watching the latest threat by the New Black Panther Party against the Republican National Convention, I thought it time to update my posts on racism and the timeline of action and inaction. The following combines some of my previous posts and adds new sources. This is a long post - you can skip to the Timeline for a quicker read if necessary. The video below, Racism in the Democratic Party is well worth watching. In a discussion of Civil Rights in America, how often do...

"I don't worry about the Constitution," said Rep. Phil Hare, Democrat of Illinois, at a town hall meeting where voters questioned his support of the legislation that became Obamacare. You can find the clip on youtube.com, where it has 462,084 hits. That was before the 2010 election, in which Hare, running for a third term in a district designed by Democrats to elect a Democrat, was defeated 53 to 43 percent by Bobby Schilling, proprietor of a pizza parlor in East Moline. A lot of politicians are worrying about the Constitution these days. Liberal commentators were shocked this past week...

During the five terms of the FDR and Truman presidencies, the Democrats did not propose any civil rights legislation. President Dwight Eisenhower, in contrast, asked his Attorney General to write the first federal civil rights legislation since the Republican Party’s 1875 Civil Rights Act. On this day fifty-three years ago, President Eisenhower signed the 1957 Civil Rights Act into law. Many Democrats in the Senate filibustered the bill, but strong Republican support ensured passage. Score one for America!

R.I.P.: The passing of the longest-serving senator gives mainstream media another chance to rewrite history. Will he be touted as a constitutional scholar or a free-spending former Klansman who fought civil rights? That Robert Byrd left his mark would be an understatement. Our prayers are with his family and the people of West Virginia. He was both the dean of the Senate and the prince of pork. He knew the history of his chamber better than anybody, having authored a four-volume history of the upper chamber, and the Constitution better than most. He also, quite shamelessly, brought home so much...

If someone offered me twice the assessed value of my home -- in cash, no questions asked -- I’d schedule a moving van. It wouldn’t matter whether the potential buyer was black, red, brown or polka dotted. The only color I’d be interested in would be green. However, if I’d lived in my home in 1952, the year after it was built, and an African-American potential buyer had offered me twice the assessed value, I would have been forced to turn the offer down. It was the Jim Crow era, and state and local laws made it illegal to sell...

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) -- The Libertarian Party is considering running a candidate in Kentucky's U.S. Senate race, saying GOP nominee Rand Paul -- the son of a former Libertarian presidential candidate -- has betrayed the party's values. Party Vice Chairman Joshua Koch said Wednesday that Paul has been a black eye for Libertarians because of stands he's taken on issues, including his criticism of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Koch said Paul is not a Libertarian. He called Paul and his Democratic opponent, Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway, "faces of the same bad coin."

“Desperate” Impact? by: Brittany Fortier, October 13, 2009 As the Supreme Court begins a new session, the Cato Institute held its 8th annual Constitution Day Conference and Supreme Court Review on September 17, 2009. This day also marked the 222nd anniversary of the adoption of the U.S. Constitution, and panelists discussed whether the Supreme Court decisions of the previous year were faithful to the intentions of our Founding Fathers. Roger Clegg, President and General Counsel for the Center for Equal Opportunity, called the “disparate impact” approach to civil rights law used by the Court in cases such as Ricci v....

The proposed toll road along US 290 East discriminates against low-income and minority populations in Austin, according to a complaint filed with the Federal Highway Administration. Texas RioGrande Legal Aid (TRLA), the leading provider of legal aid in Texas, in conjunction with the SOS Alliance and the Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment, filed the complaint on behalf of three Travis County residents and the Bluebonnet Neighborhood Association. Filed against the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority (CTRMA), and the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization (CAMPO), the complaint argues that the toll road project violates...

Sounds like "El Cid" wants to replace nonsense with commonsense. "I am angrier than a women’s libber without a bra to burn over this whole diversity nonsense. I am especially peeved about being forced to attend sexual diversity harassment training. It seems like everyone in America has been brainwashed into thinking that diversity is the greatest thing since sliced bread."

OH YEAH -- CHANGE IS COMING! The election of Barack Obama has some employers quaking in their boots. Look into the crystal ball and prepare for dramatic changes in employment law and labor activity from unions to sick leave to ergonomics. Employers can expect to see more new workplace regulations than at any time in the last two decades. The Democrats are teeing up several bills and some issues demand attention immediately. Unions -- One issue looms far above all the others for Alabama Employers -- the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). Obama supports the Employee Free Choice Act. This...

At this point, there seems little doubt about the ugliness that has simmered, and then boiled, in a little town in Louisiana called Jena. There is a lot that has already been said, and done, about the latent racism in the town that led to the display of nooses on a tree. Racism that led, in reaction, to six black youths brutally beating a young white man, and then the subsequent disproportionate sentencing, in which those black youths could have served prison time for trumped-up murder charges. Action has been taken, and will be taken, so that those charges, and...