Tag Archives: NAACP

NBC News reports: The NAACP, the country’s oldest African-American civil rights organization, publicly endorsed the Equality Act, a federal LGBTQ anti-discrimination bill. “We support what it does — and we support it now,” Hilary Shelton, the organization’s D.C. bureau director, told NBC News on Friday. “It’s important that it gets through.” Shelton said the group had previously endorsed the bill …

The Hill reports: More than a 100 civil and human rights groups are urging senators to oppose Brett Kavanaugh, President Trump’s latest Supreme Court nominee. In a Tuesday letter, led by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the groups say Kavanaugh will be a fifth and decisive vote to undermine a host of core rights and legal protections, …

This statement is REALLY something: The National Black Church Initiative (NBCI) a faith-based coalition of 34,000 churches comprised of 15 denominations and 15.7 million African Americans, is letting all Christians of Maryland know that Ben Jealous does not respect religious liberty and the authority of the Church. We are not speaking politically, we are speaking morally against him. His actions …

The Baltimore Sun reports: Former NAACP chief Ben Jealous won Maryland’s Democratic primary for governor Tuesday, promising to deliver a progressive agenda that makes college free, legalizes marijuana and raises the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour. Bolstered by support in the Baltimore region, spending from outside groups and an aggressive union-backed turnout machine, Jealous emerged from the six-way …

Via press release: The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the nation’s premier civil rights organization yesterday filed a lawsuit along with the National Federation of the Blind and the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates against the U.S. Secretary of Education and the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) in the U.S. District Court …

The sit-in is being live-streamed on Facebook. AL.com reports: The president of the NAACP and the head of the group’s Mobile branch are occupying the Alabama senator’s Mobile office until he withdraws from consideration as President-elect Donald Trump’s attorney general or the group gets arrested. The protest at Sessions’ Mobile Senate office was among several demonstrations held statewide against Sessions’ …

The Winston-Salem Chronicle reports: If state lawmakers insert themselves into deciding North Carolina’s next governor, or changing the state Supreme Court to nullify Justice-elect Mike Morgan’s victory, there will be mass demonstrations and civil disobedience, promises N.C. NAACP President Rev. Dr. William Barber II. “We believe either attempting to stack the Supreme Court or deciding the governor’s race in the …

Human Rights Campaign president Chad Griffin, National Center for Transgender Equality head Mara Keisling, and NAACP president Cornell Brooks this afternoon gave a nationally broadcast statement on the massacre in Orlando. Watch below. This is LGBT history. This is American history.

National Center for Transgender Equality head Mara Keisling and at least several other activists have just been arrested at a sit-in at the North Carolina General Assembly building. I’ve posted several short videos of current reporting via Twitter. See below. The protests were organized by several local and national groups, including the North Carolina NAACP, whose head Rev. William Barber …

Today’s “Moral Monday” protests against North Carolina’s anti-LGBT HB2 have begun outside the state capitol building. Anti-LGBT groups have vowed to bus in thousands to counter-protest. Watch live at this link.

Video below. From Raleigh’s CBS affiliate: Hundreds of people against and for House Bill 2 will descend on downtown Raleigh to make their voices heard as the General Assembly begins a new session Monday. When lawmakers file into the legislative building they’ll be met with plenty of opposition, but they won’t have to look far to find support. “We’re expecting …

The Raleigh News & Observer reports: N.C. NAACP president William Barber says his group will hold a “mass sit-in” at the legislature if a controversial LGBT law isn’t repealed by April 21. Barber, whose Forward Together Moral Movement has organized numerous Moral Monday protests and acts of civil disobedience, plans to announce more details about the event at a news …

We knew THIS was coming: Alabama now faces a federal lawsuit over its voter ID law after closing 30 or so driver’s licenses offices, many of them in areas with high African-American populations. The NAACP Legal Defense Fund is bringing the suit on behalf of Greater Birmingham Ministries and the Alabama NAACP. It was filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court …

Longtime LGBT ally and former NAACP chairman Julian Bond has died at the age of 75. CNN reports: Bond died Saturday night after a brief illness in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which he served as founding president in the 1970s. “Not only has the country lost a hero today, we’ve lost a great …

“Mississippians know sexual orientation or gender identity shouldn’t matter when it comes to working hard and taking care of your neighbor. Mississippians know all children are valued, no matter who they are. And Mississippians know that above all, treating one another with dignity and respect is what counts. “The fight for basic civil rights is not a quest for superiority …

A coalition of LGBT and civil rights groups today published a full-page ad in the Washington Post, demanding that the GOP denounce this weekend’s Family Research Council Values Voter Summit. Here is the text in full: Dear Mr. Priebus, Fifteen years ago, your predecessor called for party members to shun the Council of Conservative Citizens because of the group’s “racist …

CNN reports: The Donald Sterling scandal has claimed collateral damage: the president of the NAACP’s Los Angeles chapter. Leon Jenkins resigned Thursday, after the civil rights group came under fire for its plans to present a lifetime achievement award to the Los Angeles Clippers owner. The NAACP chapter rescinded its offer Monday after Sterling’s racist remarks came to light. But …

The following states and Washington DC have filed a collective amicus brief with the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal in support of Virginia’s marriage equality plaintiffs: Massachusetts, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington. Equality Case Files has the full brief. Money quote: As in other cases raising constitutional challenges to …

Raw Story wonders if it was a Freudian slip. “The UConn Huskies are the 2014 NAACP national champs,” Childers remarked during the second hour of the Fox & Friends First morning show. On her next attempt, she correctly stated that the team had won the national title for the NCAA — or National Collegiate Athletic Association. The National Association for …

The above groups have signed on to a Southern Poverty Law Center letter which asks members of Congress not to attend the Family Research Council’s Values Voter Summit. Via press release: “Public officials need to know the real ‘values’ they’re endorsing when they attend the Values Voter Summit,” said Heidi Beirich, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project. …