Editor’s Note:  Forty-eight years and two months after his speech for the ages, the voice of Martin Luther King, Jr. will once again ring out over the National Mall in the nation’s capitol this Sunday as the memorial to him is dedicated.   The attorneys who staffed the NAACP legal Defense and Educational Fund during the [...]

By The Editors
California Gov. Jerry Brown Friday signed legislation ending prison-based gerrymandering in the state.

By George E. Curry Rev. Joseph Lowery is a civil rights icon. He participated in all of the epic civil rights battles of his day, including the Montgomery, Ala. bus boycott, the violent showdown with “Bull” Connor in Birmingham, the Selma-to-Montgomery March and the famous 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Justice. He was [...]

By Colby Hamilton of WNYC.ORG
The New York Supreme Court heard oral arguments yesterday in the lawsuit to overturn a law passed by the 2010 Democratic legislative majority that would count prison inmates in the communities they are from, instead of in the towns and counties where they’re incarcerated.

By Lee A. Daniels
Herman Cain, fresh from his surprise victory over Texas Governor Rick Perry in the Florida Republican Party straw poll, charged on CNN Wednesday that “African-Americans have been brainwashed into not being open minded, not even considering a conservative point of view.”

On Wednesday, for the second time, a federal court in Washington, D.C. upheld the constitutionality of the heart of the 2006 reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act.

A ruling last year on Farrakhan v. Locke by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed earlier court rulings and set forth a new, nearly insurmountable standard for lawsuits attacking felon disfranchisement policies.

Ryan P. Haygood, Director of the Political Participation Group of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, explored the implications of the court’s ruling in a recent issue of the Columbia Law Review.

This week, Ryan Haygood, Director of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund’s Political Participation Group, offered testimony at a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights that addressed a wave of laws that erect barriers to the ballot box.

This week, Natasha Korgaonkar, Assistant Counsel with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) testified at a redistricting hearing before New York’s Legislative Task Force on Demographic Research and Reapportionment (LATFOR).

This week, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF) filed a motion seeking to intervene in a lawsuit on behalf of the Florida State Conference of the NAACP and African-American voters to prevent the State of Florida from implementing discriminatory voting laws.