Voting Rights Commission Convenes Hearing in Alabama to Examine Discrimination in Voting
3/10/2005 12:13:00 PM
To: Assignment Desk, Daybook Editor
Contact: Kim Alton of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, 202-662-8317 or 202-309-2483 (cell) or kalton@lawyerscomm.org
News Advisory:
WHO: National Commission on the Voting Rights Act
WHAT: Southern Regional Hearing to Examine Impact of Expiring Provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965
WHEN: Friday, March 11, 2005, 9 a.m. to 4:15 p.m.
WHERE: Freewill Missionary Baptist Church, 1724 Hill Street, Montgomery, Alabama
Confirmed panelists for the March 11th hearing include:
Attorney Laughlin McDonald: Director of the Southern Regional Office and Voting Rights Project of the ACLU.
Attorney James Blacksher: Civil rights lawyer who has litigated some of most seminal voting rights cases.
Anita Earls: Director of Advocacy at the University of North Carolina Center for Civil Rights and former Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Hon. Bobby Singleton: Alabama State Senator who represents Alabama's Black Belt.
National Commissioners in attendance are: Chair Bill Lann Lee, former Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights; Hon. John Buchanan, former Alabama Congressman; Chandler Davidson, prominent voting rights scholar; Elsie Meeks, member of the United States Commission on Civil Rights; and Charles Ogletree, Harvard law school professor.
Guest Commissioners in attendance are: Hon. Denise Majette, former Georgia Congresswoman, and Derryn Moten, Associate Professor of Humanities at Alabama State University.
Members of the public will also have an opportunity to testify before the Commission during an afternoon open session.
The privately organized Commission will hold a series of regional hearings across the country to gather testimony and evidence that will be used to create a comprehensive record on the degree of racial discrimination in voting and the impact of the VRA since 1982. The Commission will issue a report at the end of the yearlong series that will be used by policymakers, voting rights advocates, and the public.
Organized by the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the activities of the Commission are co-sponsored by the following leading civil rights organizations: Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, NAACP National Voter Fund, National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium, National Congress of American Indians, Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Southern Regional Council, National Voting Rights Museum, Center for Democratic Renewal, African American Human Rights Foundation, The People's Agenda, 21st Century Youth, and N'Cobra, Southern Region.
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The Lawyers' Committee is an over forty year old nonpartisan, nonprofit civil rights legal organization, formed in 1963 at the request of President John F. Kennedy to provide legal services to address racial discrimination.
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