A Real Civil Rights Journey

Midway through the 20th Century, almost 100 years after President Lincoln wrote and delivered the Emancipation Proclamation, white Americans were awakened to a painful truth; Millions of American men and women, descendents of freed slaves, were being treated like second and third class citizens. In some parts of this nation, they were treated worse then stray dogs.

Forced to sit in the back of busses, prevented from eating and drinking in “whites only” restaurants and bars, waiting in line to drink from water fountains designated for “colored” only, black Americans suffered the shame and humiliation associated with bigotry and racism.

Given a series of events both political and social, Americans finally awoke to this reality and the Civil Rights Movement began. With leaders like Martin Luther King and courageous political and civil activists, laws were acquired at the local, state and national level that prevented abuses so common in the black community.

These laws permitted individuals born in the United States of America–some 4th, 5th and 6th generation Americans-to finally enjoy the basic rights so many citizens took for granted.


Read More:
http://samyortysamerica.blogspot.com/2007/03/real-civil-
rights-journey.html

We need to teach children that all people including Asian and Blacks are races to be valued and loved.

H।BALAKRISHNAN, who interviewed Patnaik in 1981, goes down memory lane.

"With the prevailing system of socio-economic inequity, political corruption, mounting corruption and rising prices, similar movements could erupt again। Don't be surprised if there is another eruption before you get much older."


Read More at:
http://www.hindu.com/mag/2004/12/05/stories/2004120500470400.htm

Medha Patkar on Civil War in Nandigram

Indomitable Struggle is on at Singur & Nandigram

The repressive state and vulgar politics continues to be challenged

Singur has not given up. Nor has Tata started its work. A wall that is being built and is already upto 2 to 3 kms in length and 10 feet in height does not seem to be of Tatas. The Tata officials and employees don’t seem to be present. People in whose name this well known conflict has been raised are not aware of either who is building the wall or where are Tata’s men. The only outsider force that is in and around is still of policemen and women.

Hundreds of the police may be tired of being on the land in the open but they are not timid। They may not have section 144 to support but the State is with them. Even without CPM cadres now entering Singur to harass and pressurize the farmers, bargadars and labourers there, the State’s presence is felt and faced by those whose land is being encroached upon, who are brutally beaten, who are trying to be lured and scared to give away their land.

Read More http://www.kafila.org/2007/03/15/medha-patkar-on-civil-war-in-nandigram/

Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life - Book

From Library Journal
Although Ernesto "Che" Guevara was captured and killed in the mountains of Bolivia in 1967 at the age of 39, his thought and example continue to affect revolutionary movements throughout the world. Much has been written about this guerrilla fighter, ideologue, and world leader, but an adequate biography has not been available, in part because of restrictions on information imposed by the Cuban government. Assisted by Che's widow and family, journalist Anderson (Guerrillas, LJ 9/1/92) was able to interview close friends and associates of Che throughout the world, including in Russia and Cuba. Anderson also gained access to Cuban archives and documents never before consulted. He has written an important journalistic biography that is sympathetic to this influential figure. Though controversy will surround this book (as it always does when the subject is Che), this is an important volume that should be in all academic and most public libraries.?Mark L. Grover, Brigham Young Univ., Provo

Civil rights - From Wikipedia

Civil rights are the protections and privileges of personal power given to all citizens by law. Civil rights are distinguished from "human rights" or "natural rights". Civil rights are rights that are bestowed by nations on those within their territorial boundaries, while natural or human rights are rights that many scholars claim ought to belong to all people. For example, the philosopher John Locke (1632–1704) argued that the natural rights of life, liberty and property should be converted into civil rights and protected by the sovereign state as an aspect of the social contract. Others have argued that people acquire rights as an inalienable gift from the deity or at a time of nature before governments were formed.

Laws guaranteeing civil rights may be written, derived from custom or implied. In the United States and most continental European countries, civil rights laws are most often written. In the United States, for example, laws protecting civil rights appear in the Constitution, in the amendments to the Constitution (particularly the 13th and 14th Amendments), in federal statutes, in state constitutions and statutes and even in the ordinances of counties and cities. In the United Kingdom, on the other hand, such rights are frequently granted by custom and are not memorialized in written law. "Implied" rights are rights that a court may find to exist even though not expressly guaranteed by written law or custom, on the theory that a written or customary right must necessarily include the implied right. One famous (and controversial) example of a right implied from the U.S. Constitution is the "right to privacy", which the U.S. Supreme Court found to exist in the 1965 case of Griswold v. Connecticut. In the 1973 case of Roe v. Wade, the Court found that state legislation prohibiting or limiting abortion violated this right to privacy. As a rule, state governments can expand civil rights beyond the U.S. Constitution, but they cannot diminish Constitutional rights.

Examples of civil rights and liberties include the right to get redress if injured by another, the right to privacy, the right of peaceful protest, the right to a fair investigation and trial if suspected of a crime, and more generally-based constitutional rights such as the right to vote, the right to personal freedom, the right to freedom of movement and the right of equal protection. As civilisations emerged and formalised through written constitutions, some of the more important civil rights were granted to citizens. When those grants were later found inadequate, civil rights movements emerged as the vehicle for claiming more equal protection for all citizens and advocating new laws to restrict the effect of current discriminations.

Civil rights can in one sense refer to the equal treatment of all citizens irrespective of race, sex, or other class, or it can refer to laws which invoke claims of positive liberty. An example of the former would be the decision in Brown v. Board of Education 347 U.S. 483 (1954) which was concerned with the constitutionality of laws which imposed segregation in the education systems of some U.S states. The theories set out below explain why such laws should not be considered legitimate, but do not explain why the case failed to declare the general principle that all manifestations of segregation were a breach of civil rights (that would be more properly a question of politics). The U.S. legislature subsequently addressed the issue through the Civil Rights Act of 1964 Sec. 201. which states: (a) All persons shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, and accommodations of any place of public accommodation, as defined in this section, without discrimination or segregation on the ground of race, color, religion, or national origin. Some other countries have enacted similar legislation, or have given direct effect to supranational treaties and agreements such as the European Convention on Human Rights (with forty-five countries as signatories), which encompass both human rights and civil liberties.