The Greene County Democrat

Tag: The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights

  • National and local leaders gather in Selma to strategize on protecting Democracy and Civil Rights 

    Photo No. 1 (cutline) : John Zippert, Co-publisher of the Greene County Democrat and Chair of the Board of the Greene County Health Sysytem speaks about healthcare issues at

     Photo No.2 (Cutline). From right to left: Allison Hamilton, executive director of the Alabama Coalition for Immigrant Justice; Faya Touré, American civil rights activist and lawyer; John Zippert, board chair of Greene County Hospital/Greene County Health System; Maya Wiley, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights; Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the NAACP; Congresswoman Maxine Waters (CA-43).; Jocelyn Frye, president of the National Partnership for Women & Families; Juan Proaño, chief executive officer of the League of United Latin American Citizens; Fatima Goss Graves, president and CEO of the National Women’s Law Center; and Martha Morgan, professor emerita of law at the University of Alabama School of Law.

    As our nation commemorated the 60th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, national and state leaders, civil rights organizations, and community advocates convened in Selma, Alabama, for a powerful and urgent discussion about protecting democracy and advancing civil rights in the face of unprecedented threats.

    The event, “Saving Democracy: Our Civil Rights Strategies for this Unprecedented Moment,” was co-hosted by Hank Sanders  and Faya Rose Touré (The Bridge Crossing Jubilee), The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, and a coalition of national and local organizations. The convening reaffirmed the movement’s commitment to defending democracy and mobilizing against voter suppression, attacks on civil rights, and systemic barriers to justice.

    Maya Wiley, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights: “As we confront an onslaught of attacks from our own federal government on the very civil and human rights it is obligated to protect and uphold, we are working united and unwavering against the attacks on our freedom and potential. This regime is abusing power — violating laws and dismantling its role as a shield — to turn the government into a weapon against us. They are stripping resources from our schools, our health care, and kids who can’t afford college, all while trying to discourage us from using our voice to make demands of the government.

    These efforts to erase our progress and dismantle our civil rights are direct attacks on our power to shape our future and ensure opportunities for our families. The promised land is not a promise, and democracy is a demand. Real power starts in our communities. When we organize locally, build coalitions, and mobilize for change, we create the foundation for national progress. Our coalition knows this is a fight for the promise of America and a multiracial democracy that works for all of us, not just a powerful few. Just as those who marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge 60 years ago showed us, when we organize and join together, we can face anything. Our coalition will continue that fight until freedom is won.”

    Hank Sanders, Founder of the Selma Bridge Crossing Jubilee: “We have to know our strengths if we are to engage effectively in this great struggle to maintain and improve this imperfect democracy. We know that we have been through greater struggles with less resources and triumphed. We must remember that we are not just in a terrible storm but going through the storm. There is something better on the other side. Know your strengths!”

    Fatima Goss Graves, president and CEO of the National Women’s Law Center: “At a time when our nation’s president incredulously tries to undo baseline civil rights protections and stoke fear in anyone fighting for justice, it is critical we double down on our commitment to gender and racial equality. We must not turn our backs on decades of progress secured by people who risked their lives fighting for equality, freedom and a fair shot for all. Diversity, equity and inclusion are not dirty words — and we will continue to challenge a president desperate to normalize racism and misogyny throughout his administration.”

    Derrick Johnson, president & chief executive officer of the NAACP: “Selma is a physical reminder of the history that must inform our future. No matter who occupies the Oval Office or holds the gavel on Capitol Hill, the NAACP will not accept regression as our reality. I was proud to stand alongside our colleagues in the fight for civil rights to remind us that race is merely a tool to distract from the perils of power, hungriness, and greed. We cannot be distracted. We must remain determined. Let’s continue the work to ensure democracy truly works for everybody.”

    Juan Proaño, chief executive officer of the League of United Latin American Citizens(LULAC): “LULAC’s fight for voting rights and immigrant justice is a fight for our democracy. On the 60th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, we’re reminded that the same forces that once attacked Black Americans’ votes now target the Latino vote and vilify immigrants. LULAC stands strong, ensuring minority voices and power are felt in every election. We will not stand by as ICE and Border Patrol invade our schools, hospitals, and places of worship. The SAVE Act and attacks on sensitive locations are tools of intimidation meant to silence us. We will not back down. We’ll fight these policies in court, protest in the streets, and hold those responsible accountable. Our right to vote, learn, earn, heal, and pray is non-negotiable. The time to act is now.”

    Jocelyn Frye, president of the National Partnership for Women & Families: “The ability to access high quality, affordable health care shapes every aspect of our lives, from our physical wellbeing to our economic security to our sense of personal freedom and dignity. Yet, the Trump administration is systematically attacking our health care system by enacting massive cuts to federal agencies, making it harder to collect information on health disparities, targeting programs like Medicaid that provide care to those in greatest need, and undermining abortion access. Our calls to action — to consistently make clear that health care is a civil rights issue; lift up the stories of the people who are harmed when they cannot access much-needed care; push policymakers to mandate the collection of data that can show racial, gender, and other disparities and to make infrastructure investments for more health care facilities; and proclaim that health care should never be treated as a precious resource that is only available to the privileged and the wealthy.”

    Martha Morgan, professor emerita of law at the University of Alabama School of Law and member of the steering committee of SOS (Saving OurSelves Movement for Justice and Democracy): “In Alabama, the attacks on democracy and justice are ongoing and groups like SOS are issuing calls to action to continue defending our rights in the field of education. In 2024, the Republican controlled legislature enacted laws aimed at the heart of both higher education and K-12. First, it banned public funding for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs and restricted the teaching of so-called ‘divisive concepts’ at all public colleges and universities. Public colleges and universities responded by ending or recasting their DEI programs and closing campus spaces for student groups. The ACLU of Alabama and the Legal Defense Fund have filed a lawsuit on behalf of several courageous professors and students at University of Alabama campuses, and the NAACP and the legal battle is underway. A second 2024 law guts funding for K-12 education by allowing families to receive $7,000 to send their children to private school and $2,000 for children who are homeschooled.”

    John Zippert, board chair of the Greene County Health System in Eutaw, Alabama and SOS Steering Committee member: “For the past ten years we have been struggling with the Governor and the Alabama Legislature to expand Medicaid to provide health insurance to 300,000 low-income working people. Now our small rural hospital, nursing home and physician’s clinic faces the Trump Administration’s plan to cut $880 billion from Medicaid. This will further reduce our facility’s income. Every one of the 38 people we currently have in our Nursing Home is supported by Medicaid. Will we have to put these aging Americans, Black and White, into the streets? A reduction in the Medicaid and Medicare already low reimbursements will likely force us to close our facility, creating greater healthcare hardships for rural people in our communities.”

    The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights is a coalition charged by its diverse membership of more than 240 national organizations to promote and protect the rights of all persons in the United States. The Leadership Conference works toward an America as good as its ideals. For more information on The Leadership Conference and its member organizations, visit www.civilrights.org. 

  • Newswire: Rep. Sewell praises House passage of the Voting Rights Advancement Act

    Washington, D.C. – On Friday, December 6, 2019 , U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell (AL-07) praised the House passage of H.R. 4, her Voting Rights Advancement Act. The bill will restore the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by outlining a process to determine which states and localities with a recent history of voting rights violations must pre-clear election changes with the Department of Justice.
    “Voting is personal to me, not only because I represent America’s Civil Rights District—but because it was on the streets of my hometown, Selma, Alabama, that foot soldiers shed their blood on the Edmund Pettus Bridge so that all Americans—regardless of race—could vote!” Sewell said. “I am so proud that, today, the House took critical steps in addressing the Supreme Court’s Shelby decision and passed H.R. 4, the Voting Rights Advancement Act, to restore the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to its full strength.”
    The Supreme Courts’ 2013 Shelby County v. Holder ruling struck down Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which outlined the qualifications needed to determine which states are required by the Justice Department to pre-clear elections changes in states with a history of voter discrimination.
    Since the Shelby decision, nearly two-dozen states have implemented restrictive voter ID laws and previously-covered states have closed or consolidated polling places, shortened early voting and imposed other measures that restrict voting.
    The Voting Rights Advancement Act (VRAA) seeks to restore the VRA by developing a process to determine which states must pre-clear election changes with the Department of Justice. It will also require a nationwide, practice-based pre-clearance of known discriminatory practices, including the creation of at-large districts, inadequate multilingual voting materials, cuts to polling places, changes that reduce the days or hours of in person voting on Sundays during the early voting period and changes to the maintenance of voter registration lists that adds a basis or institutes a new process for removal from the lists, where the jurisdiction includes racial or language minority populations above a certain percent threshold.
    Under H.R. 4, there are three ways to become a covered jurisdiction that is required to pre-clear election changes:
    States with a history of 15 or more violations at any level in the previous 25 years; or
    States with a history of 10 or more violations, if one violation occurs at the state level in the previous 25 years; or
    Political subdivisions or localities with 3 or more violations in that subdivision in the previous 25 years.
    The Voting Rights Advancement Act now heads to the Senate for consideration, where it was introduced by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT).
    Many are now calling on the Senate to take up the measure. Rev. Dr. William Barber, the president and senior lecturer of Repairers of the Breach and the architect of the Moral Mondays Movement in North Carolina, counts among those calling out Senate leaders.
    “The U.S. House passed legislation to restore the Voting Rights Act,” Barber stated. “If [GOP Senate Majority Leader] Mitch McConnell refuses to take it up in the Senate, he’s confessing that he believes the GOP can’t win without voter suppression.”
    Gerrymandering, unfair voter I.D. laws, and intimidation at the polls are among the tactics being used to prevent voters of color from casting votes, stated Marcela Howell, the founder, and president of In Our Own Voice: National Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda.
    “Passage of the Voting Rights Advancement Act by the House is a first step toward restoring our democracy. We applaud the House of Representatives for passing the Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2019,” Howell stated.
    “The wholesale disenfranchisement of voters threatens our democracy. Conservative lawmakers across the country are pulling out all the stops to prevent people of color – especially Black people – from exercising our right to vote,” she stated.
    Howell continued: “We didn’t march and die fighting for our right to vote only to have that right denied us in this new Jim Crow era –fueled by the racist policies of conservative state legislators and the terrible decision in Shelby v. Holder by the Supreme Court that reinforced these oppressive laws.
    “We call on Sen. Mitch McConnell to follow the leadership of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to stop the assault on voting rights by scheduling a Senate vote on the Voting Rights Advancement Act as soon as possible.
    “We encourage voters across the country to unite in resistance by holding their elected representatives accountable and, most of all, by exercising their right to vote in local, state, and federal elections.”
    The bill is supported by more than 60 national organizations, including the NAACP, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, NALEO Educational Fund, Asian Americans Advancing Justice, Native American Rights Fund, League of Women Voters of the United States, AAUW, ACLU, AFL-CIO, AFSCME, American Federation of Teachers, National Education Association, Communications Workers of America, SEIU, UAW, Democracy 21, Democracy Initiative, End Citizens United Action Fund, Sierra Club, and League of Conservation Voters Education Fund.

  • Newswire :  Center for Responsible Lending calls for firing of fair lending official who used N-Word

    By Charlene Crowell ( TriceEdneyWire.com) – Recent and stunning disclosures of racially-offensive writings by a high-ranking official at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has unleashed an escalating barrage of criticisms, including calls for the official to be fired and more probing questions regarding the agency’s commitment to fair lending. Since a September 28 Washington Post article first reported how Eric Blankenstein, CFPB’s Policy Director for Supervision, Enforcement and Fair Lending, used a pen name in blogs dating as far back as 2004, a spate of fury has been unleashed. Disguising his authorship, Blankenstein claimed that the use of the N-word was not racist, and further alleged that most hate crimes were hoaxes. A subsequent New York Times article alleged that people who perpetuated the Obama birther conspiracy are not racist either, and noted that as late as 2016, Blankenstein’s personal Twitter account posted racially charged comments. Keep in mind that Blankenstein was hand-picked by CFPB head Mick Mulvaney. Patrice A. Ficklin, a CFPB career staff member and Director of its Office of Fair Lending and Equal Opportunity reports to Blankenstein and is quoted in the Post article. Ficklin said, “And while he has been collegial, thoughtful and meticulous, I have had experiences that have raised concerns that are now quite alarming in light of the content of his blog posts — experiences that call into question Eric’s ability and intent to carry out his and his Acting Director’s repeated yet unsubstantiated commitment to a continued strong fair lending program under governing legal precedent.” By October 1, Anthony Reardon, National President of the National Treasury Employees Union, advised CFPB of its dissatisfaction with the Blankenstein blogs. “There should be zero tolerance for comments that Blankenstein has admitted authoring and nothing less than swift and decisive action is called for,” said Reardon. “That someone with a history of racially derogatory and offensive comments has a leadership position at CFPB reflects poorly on CFPB management and your commitment to fulfilling the mandate of the agency to ensure that discriminatory and predatory lending practices are stopped.” Two days later, on October 3, the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) publicly called for Blankenstein to be fired. “Mr. Blankenstein must be removed from his post and this must be combined with a demonstrable commitment by CFPB head Mick Mulvaney to fair lending,” said Yana Miles, CRL’s Senior Legislative Counsel. “Thus far, the Mulvaney approach has been worse than inaction – it has been an appalling retreat from enforcing anti-discrimination laws…. The enduring legacy and present-day experience of financial discrimination is the key driver of the racial wealth gap. Vigorously addressing this is a legal and moral imperative.” A second civil rights organization agreed with CRL’s call for Blankenstein’s termination. “Eric Blankenstein’s racist and sexist remarks show that he is not fit to lead the CFPB Office of Fair Lending,” said Vanita Gupta, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. “Our nation’s history of financial discrimination is the key factor in the growing racial wealth gap.” “Entrusting Blankenstein given his history of racially derogatory remarks will undermine progress for fair lending efforts to close the gap,” continued Gupta. “If the CFPB is serious about eradicating discrimination, it must immediately remove Blankenstein, and must ensure that it is led by a person with a demonstrated commitment to civil rights enforcement. His writings make clear that Mr. Blankenstein is not that person.” The same day, another pivotal development occurred. A letter signed by 13 U.S. Senators representing 11 states wrote Mulvaney, demanding answers to a series of questions no later than October 22. The questions span Mulvaney’s personal awareness of the writings, the guidelines and procedures used to fill the position, whether a Member of Congress, or an executive branch employee recommended his hiring, what action he intends to take as Acting Director and more. In part, the Senators’ letter states, “We are deeply concerned that you have placed a person with a history of racist writing at a senior position within the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau…Mr. Blankenstein was not hired through the competitive service process like most CFPB employers; he is one of your hand-selected political appointees. Further, you have specifically tasked him with overseeing the CFPB’s fair lending supervision and enforcement work at a time when you have decided to restructure the Office of Fair Lending and Equal Opportunity.” The letter was signed by Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Maria Cantwell (D-Washington State), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Kamala Harris (D-CA), Edward Markey (D-MA), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), Jack Reed (D-RI) Mark Warner (D-VA), Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Ron Wyden (D-OR). Even before the Blankenstein scandal, Mulvaney’s actions and inactions at the CFPB have brought a series of concerns by civil rights and consumer advocates alike. Particularly noteworthy among their stated concerns under Mulvaney include: CFPB has yet to issue any violations of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act; The Bureau declared an intent to ignore the Disparate Impact standard, a long-standing legal test that holds the effects of discrimination, not the intent are legal violations; Personally praised the repeal of anti-discrimination auto lending guidance; Sided with payday lenders in their challenge of the Bureau’s payday rule promulgated under the previous director; Announced the Bureau’s fair lending office would be stripped of its supervisory and enforcement powers; and Relegated the development of regulation on fair lending for minority and women-owned businesses to a low-level concern. It took decades of vigilant struggle for civil rights, fair lending, and consumer protection to be codified in federal laws. It is time to remind the CFPB and all federal agencies that they have a duty to uphold the nation’s fair lending laws – regardless of personal beliefs. Charlene Crowell is the Center for Responsible Lending’s Communications Deputy Director. She can be reached at Charlene.crowell@responsiblelending.org.