To Be Equal #50
December 27, 2018
2018: THE YEAR IN CIVIL RIGHTS
Marc H. Morial
President and CEO
National Urban League
“We needed now to be resolute, to keep our feet pointed in the direction of progress.” – Michelle Obama, Becoming
We began 2018 by noting that this year marked the 50th anniversary of a number of civil rights milestones, including the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy, and the passage of the Fair Housing Act.
Indeed, we spent much of the year reflecting on these anniversaries. I was privileged to speak at the official Martin Luther King, Jr., commemoration ceremony at the former Lorraine Motel in Memphis. I also hosted a special memorial segment on CBS News in which I interviewed his son, Martin Luther King III; his personal friend Harry Belafonte, and a classmate from Boston University – my mother, Sybil Haydel Morial.
I participated in a number of events commemorating the anniversary of the Fair Housing Act, including the debut of Seven Days a short documentary produced by the National Fair Housing Alliance about the week between King’s assassination and the signing of the Act.
Looking back at this year of commemoration, however, the civil rights gains we intended to celebrate seem more tenuous than at any time over the last 50 years.
JANUARY: The President appalled much of the nation and the world when he decried immigration from Haiti, El Salvador and African nations, insulting them with an obscene slur, and expressing a desire for more white immigrants – from nations like Norway – instead.
FEBRUARY: News broke that the Justice Department had shuttered the Office for Access to Justice, which makes legal aid available to indigent litigants. At the same time, we learned that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director had gutted the Office of Fair Lending and Equal Opportunity, the unit responsible for enforcing anti-discrimination laws in lending.
MARCH: About 700 students from Urban League affiliates around the nation converged on Washington D.C. to demand commonsense gun reforms. The March for our Lives, the largest student-led anti-gun-violence demonstration in U.S. history, was organized by suvivors of the Parkland, Florida, mass school shooting, and has been regarded as a turning point in the gun reform movement.
APRIL: The Trump Administration announced a “zero tolerance” policy of criminally prosecuting every person who crossed the border without documentation. The policy resulted in the separation of thousands of children from their families, many of whom have yet to be reunited.
MAY: The Department of Housing and Urban Development suspended the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule, which tied Community Development Block grant money to a reviewing of policies to determine whether they contribute to segregation. Housing groups sued to have the rule reinstated, but a federal court dismissed the suit.
JUNE: A federal judge ordered the Trump Administration to stop separating children from their parents at the border and ordered that all families already separated be reunited within 30 days. The government missed the court-imposed deadline, and an estimated 5% of children – about 130 – remain under detention far from their families.
JULY: Trump administration revoked federal guidance on the voluntary use of race in college admissions and public school enrollment. One of the guidance statements revoked recognized “the compelling interest that postsecondary institutions have in obtaining the benefits that flow from achieving a diverse student body.”
AUGUST: On the one-year anniversary of the deadly white supremacist demonstration in Charlottesville, Virginia, the National Urban League urged Congress to conduct oversight hearings regarding prosecution of hate crimes and domestic terrorism, the enforcement of civil rights laws and restoration of the Voting Rights Act.
SEPTEMBER: The National Urban League and nearly 200 other organizations sent a letter to the Senate urging opposition to Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court. His record demonstrated that he would vote to undermine many of our core rights and legal protections. Kavanagh was narrowly confirmed following a contentious hearing process that included allegations of sexual assault.
OCTOBER: Civil rights groups sued Georgia’s Secretary of State over the state’s “exact match” voter registration rule, which allows the state to reject applications if so much as a hypen is out of place. Of the 53,000 applications placed on hold because of the rule, 70% were from people of color.
NOVEMBER: In a last-minute act just before he left office last month, Attorney General Jeff Sessions drastically restricted the federal government’s ability to oversee local police departments accused of racially-motivated abuse and civil rights violations. Sessions signed a memorandum curtailing the use of consent decrees, court-approved agreements between the Justice Department and local governments that outline reforms.
DECEMBER: About 25% of the federal government shut down after Congress and the Administration failed to come to an agreement about funding the proposed border wall.
To be sure, there were some civil rights victories to celebrate in 2018, notably the passage of the First Step Act, and criminal justice reforms in Florida and Louisiana. As we enter 2019, we hope to see more such victories and vow to continue fighting for racial justice and economic opportunity.
