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Norton, others call for civil rights enforcement
(Published July 12, 2004)

Political activists and business leaders gathered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial June 2 to celebrate the 40th anniversary of President Lyndon Johnson's signing of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and to criticize the Bush administration for not doing enough to enforce the act.

"Today, I am only too happy to be here to celebrate the passage of this act. My one regret (concerning this celebration) is that there is a hostile administration that is enforcing (the Civil Rights) Act," said Joslyn Williams, president of Washington's AFL-CIO labor council.

Williams was joined by Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Elijah E. Cummings, D-Md., and others on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. made his historic appeal for civil rights in 1963.

The event was attended by a small crowd of reporters, civil rights activists and onlookers.

"The Lincoln Memorial is the right place to commemorate the most comprehensive civil rights legislation in our nation's history and to urge the Bush administration to use the occasion to improve enforcement of the act," said Norton, who formerly headed the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which was created by the Civil Rights Act.

Many of the speakers lamented that some of the initial goals of the civil rights movement still need to be accomplished. Mary Francis Berry, who chairs the U.S. Commission on Human Rights, asserted that some communities continue to embrace racism and segregation four decades after they were outlawed.

Cummings urged that young people become more aware of political issues surrounding the upcoming election.

"The most important (accomplishments)...lie with the future and with young voters," he said.– By Robert Arkell