Related Research Articles
The New Black Panther Party (NBPP) is an American black nationalist organization founded in Dallas, Texas, in 1989. Despite its name, the NBPP is not an official successor to the Black Panther Party. Members of the original Black Panther Party have insisted that the new party has no legitimacy and "there is no new Black Panther Party".
Merrick Brian Garland is an American lawyer and jurist serving since March 2021 as the 86th United States attorney general. He previously served as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 1997 to 2021.
The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (CCR) is a bipartisan, independent commission of the United States federal government, created by the Civil Rights Act of 1957 during the Eisenhower administration, that is charged with the responsibility for investigating, reporting on, and making recommendations concerning civil rights issues in the United States. Specifically, the CCR investigates allegations of discrimination based on race, sex, national origin, disability. Since 2021, Norma V. Cantu has served as chair of the CCR.
Thomas John Perrelli is an American lawyer and the former United States Associate Attorney General. He served as Associate Attorney General during the administration of President Barack Obama. Perrelli also served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the United States in the late 1990s.
Abigail Thernstrom was an American political scientist and a leading conservative scholar on race relations, voting rights and education. She was an adjunct scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a member of the Massachusetts Board of Education, and vice chair of the United States Commission on Civil Rights. She received her Ph.D. from the Department of Government at Harvard University in 1975. According to the New York Times, she and her husband Harvard Professor Stephan Thernstrom, "are much in demand on the conservative talk-show circuit, where they forcefully argue that racial preferences are wrong, divisive and, as a tool to help minorities, overrated. They serve on the boards of conservative and libertarian public-policy institutes."
On December 7, 2006, the George W. Bush administration's Department of Justice ordered the unprecedented midterm dismissal of seven United States attorneys. Congressional investigations focused on whether the Department of Justice and the White House were using the U.S. attorney positions for political advantage. Allegations were that some of the attorneys were targeted for dismissal to impede investigations of Republican politicians or that some were targeted for their failure to initiate investigations that would damage Democratic politicians or hamper Democratic-leaning voters. The U.S. attorneys were replaced with interim appointees, under provisions in the 2005 USA PATRIOT Act reauthorization.
Thomas Edward Perez is an American politician and attorney currently serving as senior advisor to the president of the United States and director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, holding both positions since June 2023. Perez previously served as the United States secretary of labor (2013–2017), the chair of the Democratic National Committee (2017–2021), and United States assistant attorney general for civil rights (2009–2013).
Bradley Joseph Schlozman is an American attorney who served as acting head of the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice under Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. A member of the Republican Party, Schlozman was appointed by Gonzales as the interim U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, replacing Todd Graves, and he assumed that office on March 23, 2006. In April 2007, Schlozman left the U.S. Attorney position to work at the Executive Office for United States Attorneys. He was succeeded by John F. Wood as US attorney.
The American Center for Voting Rights (ACVR) was a non-profit organization founded by Mark F. "Thor" Hearne that operated from March 2005 to May 2007 and pushed for laws to reduce voter intimidation and voter fraud, and supported requiring photo ID for voters.
The United States House Committee on the Judiciary and the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, have oversight authority over Department of Justice (DOJ). In 2007 it conducted public and closed-door oversight and investigative hearings on the DOJ's interactions with the White House and staff members of the Executive Office of the President. A routine oversight hearing on January 18, 2007 by the Senate committee was the first public congressional occasion that Attorney General Gonzales responded to questions about dismissed United States Attorneys (USAs). Both committees invited or subpoenaed past and present Department of Justice officers and staff to appear and testify during 2007, and both committees requested or subpoenaed documents, and made the documents that were produced publicly available.
Eric Himpton Holder Jr. is an American lawyer who served as the 82nd United States attorney general from 2009 to 2015. Holder, serving in the administration of President Barack Obama, was the first African American to hold the position of U.S. attorney general.
Peter N. Kirsanow is a partner with the law firm of Benesch, Friedlander, Coplan & Aronoff, working within its Labor & Employment Practice Group in Cleveland, Ohio. He is a black civil-rights commissioner and a member of the United States Commission on Civil Rights, serving his fourth consecutive 6-year term, which he was reappointed to by House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer in December 2019. He is the longest-serving member among the current commission. He was previously a member of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) from January 2006 to January 2008.
Michael Yaki is an American attorney and politician. He has served as a Commissioner on the United States Commission on Civil Rights, succeeding Christopher Edley, Jr., since February 2005.
The New Black Panther Party voter intimidation case was a political controversy in the United States concerning an incident that occurred during the 2008 election. Two weeks before George W. Bush left office, the New Black Panther Party and two of its members, Minister King Samir Shabazz and Jerry Jackson, were sued by the Department of Justice on claims of voter intimidation for their conduct outside a polling station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
John Christian Adams is an American attorney and conservative activist formerly employed by the United States Department of Justice under the George W. Bush administration. Since leaving the DOJ, Adams has become notable for making alarmist and false claims about the extent of voter fraud in the United States. He has falsely accused a number of legitimate voters of being fraudulent, and has published information about them online, including Social Security numbers.
Voter suppression in the United States consists of various legal and illegal efforts to prevent eligible citizens from exercising their right to vote. Such voter suppression efforts vary by state, local government, precinct, and election. Voter suppression has historically been used for racial, economic, gender, age and disability discrimination. Before and during the American Civil War, most African-Americans had not been able to vote. After the Civil War, all African-American men were granted voting rights, causing some Southern Democrats and former Confederate states to institute actions such as poll taxes or language tests that were ostensibly not in contradiction to the U.S. Constitution at the time, but were used to limit and suppress voting access, most notably African American communities that made up large proportions of the population in those areas, but in many regions the majority of the electorate as a whole was functionally or officially unable to register to vote or unable to cast a ballot. African Americans' access to registration and voting in the South was often difficult until the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and continues to be a subject of debate.
Cornell William Brooks is an American lawyer and activist. He was chosen to be the president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in May 2014. He previously served as president of the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice in Newark, New Jersey, and as executive director of the Fair Housing Council of Greater Washington.
Albert Turner was an American civil rights activist and an advisor to Martin Luther King Jr. He was Alabama field secretary for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and helped lead the voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery; and assisted others escape beating during the Bloody Sunday.
The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2021 was a policing reform bill drafted by Democrats in the United States Congress. The legislation was introduced in the United States House of Representatives on February 24, 2021. The legislation aims to combat police misconduct, excessive force, and racial bias in policing.
Kristen M. Clarke is an American attorney who has served as the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division at the United States Department of Justice since May 2021. Clarke previously served as president of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. She also managed the Civil Rights Bureau of the New York State Attorney General's Office under Eric Schneiderman. In 2019, Clarke successfully represented Taylor Dumpson, the first African American woman student body president of American University, in her landmark case against white supremacists.
References
- ↑ Former DOJ attorney in NBPP voter intimidation case to testify on July 6, 2010 at US Commission on Civil Rights hearing, prnewswire.com; accessed April 14, 2014.
- ↑ J. Christian Adams account of NBPP voter intimidation, washingtontimes.com, June 25, 2010; accessed April 14, 2014.
- ↑ Jerry Markon & Krissah Thompson (September 25, 2010). "Justice lawyer alleges bias at agency". Washington Post. p. A1.
- ↑ Markon, Jerry; Thompson, Krissah (September 25, 2010). "Bias led to 'gutting' of New Black Panthers case, Justice official says". The Washington Post.