Gale Encyclopedia Of American Law 3Rd Edition Volume 2 P44 doc

civil rights, and, therefor e, Congress was
powerless to legislate on the social conduct of
private individuals. Following this decision,
states began enacting
SEGREGATION in various
laws, the most notorious of which were
collectively referred to as the
JIM CROW LAWS.It
took more than 80 years before Congress would
again attempt to legislate in this area.
The Civil Rights Acts of 1957 indicated
congressional recognition that the federal gov-
ernment had to bring about an end to racial
discrimination. The Civil Rights Commission
was established, and the laws guaranteed quali-
fied voters the right to vote, regardless of their
color. From 1964 through 1968, Congress
enacted extensive and far-reaching legislation
affording blacks equal status under the law,
ranging from full and free enjoyment of public
accommodations and facilities to the prohibition
of racial discrimination in employment as well as
transactions affecting housing in the United
States. These laws include the Civil Rights
Act of 1964, the
VOTING RIGHTS ACT OF 1965,
and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act
of 1967.
The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990
outlawed discrimination based on physical
disability in employment and public buildings.

The Civil Rights Act of 1991 granted to victims
of unlawful discrimination the right to seek
money damages, jury trial s, and back pay. The
Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 amended
the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to the make the
180-day
STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS fo r filing an
equal-pay lawsuit reset with each new discrimi-
natory paycheck. The act overturned a Supreme
Court ruling that held the 180 days began
running with the employee’s first paycheck that
was effected by discrimination.
CROSS REFERENCES
Civil Rights; “Civil Rights Act of 1964” (Append ix, Primary
Document); Ku Klux Klan Act; “Voting Rights Act of 1965”
(Appendix, Primary Document).
CIVIL RIGHTS CASES
A landmark decision, which was a consolidation
of several cases brought before the Supreme Court
of the United States in 1883 that declared the Civil
Rights Act of 1875 (18 Stat. 336) unconstitutional
and ultimately led to the enactment of state laws,
such as Jim Crow Laws, which codified what had
previously been individual adherence to the
practice of racial segregation. The cases were
United States v. Stanley, United S tates v. Ryan,
United States v. Nichols, and United States v.
Singleton, 109 U.S. 3, 3 S. Ct. 18, 27 L. Ed. 835.
The
CIVIL RIGHTS Act of 1875 was passed by

Congress in the post-Civil War era in response
to the refusal of many w hites to afford newly
freed slaves equal treatment with whites under
federal law. The act mandated that owners of
public facilities, such as inns, restaurants, rail-
roads, and other carriers, not discriminate
against blacks who sought acce ss to, or service
from, them on the basis of their race. Anyon e
who violated the law was subject to criminal
prosecution.
Scores of prosecutions ensued and six cases
reached the Supreme Court. The fact patterns of
the cases were comparable in that they all were
predicated upon the failure of blacks to be
treated the same as whites in various establish-
ments such as restaurants, theaters, railroads,
and even the New York City Grand Opera
House.
The Court consolidated these cases by
deciding that the crucial issue in each was
whether the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was
constitutional, to which it answered “no.” In
an 8–1 decision, Justice
JOSEPH BRADLEY reasoned
that neither the Thirteenth nor Fourteenth
Amendments empowered Congress to safe-
guard blacks against the actions of private
individuals. To decide otherwise would afford
blacks a special status under the law that whites
did not enjoy . The Thirteenth Amendment’s

prohibition of
SLAVERY had no application to
discrimination in the area of public accommo-
dations. Neither did the
EQUAL PROTECTION
Clause of the FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT apply to
prohibit racial
SEGREGATION, because it was as the
result of conduct by private individuals, not
state law or action, that blacks were suffering.
The only dissenting justice was
JOHN MARSHALL
HARLAN
, who criticized the majority opinion on a
number of grounds, including that the exclusion
of blacks from state licensed facilities for no
other reason than their race did bring into
application both the Thirteenth and Fourteenth
Amendments and that Congress had the author-
ity pursuant to the
COMMERCE CLAUSE to legislate in
those cases involving railroads.
The decision in the Civil Rights Cases
severely restricted the power of the federal
government to guarantee equal status under the
law to blacks. State officials in the South took
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION
418 CIVIL RIGHTS CASES
advantage of the eclipsed role of Congress in the
prohibition of racial discrimination and pro-

ceeded to embody individual practices of racial
segregation into laws that legalized the treat-
ment of blacks as second-class citizens for
another seventy years.
CROSS REFERENCE S
Civil Rights; Civil Rights Acts; “Civil Rights Cases” (Appendix,
Primary Document).
CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
The civil rights movement has been called the
Second Reconstruction, in reference to the Recon-
struction imposed upon the South following the
Civil War. During this period, the Fourteenth
Amendment (1868)—granting equal protection of
the laws—and Fifteenth Amendment (1870)—
giving the right to vote to all males regardless of
race—were ratified, and troops from the North
occupied the South from 1865 to 1877 to enforce
the abolition of slavery. However, with the end of
Reconstruction in 1877, southern whites again
took control of the South, passing a variety of laws
that discriminated on the basis of race. These were
called Jim Crow laws, or the Black Codes. They
segregated whites and blacks in education, housing,
and the use of public and private facilities such as
restaurants, trains, and rest rooms; they also denied
blacks the right to vote, to move freely, and to
marry whites. Myriad other prejudicial and
discriminatory practices were committed as well,
from routine denial of the right to a fair trial to
outright murder by lynching. These laws and

practices were a reality of U.S. life well into the
twentieth century.
The civil rights movement was a struggle by
African Americans in the mid-1950s to late
1960s to achieve
CIVIL RIGHTS equal to those of
whites, including equal opportunity in employ-
ment, housing, and education, as well as the
right to vote, the right of equal access to public
facilities, and the right to be free of racial
discrimination. No social or political movement
of the twentieth century has had as profound an
effect on the legal and political institutions of the
United States. This movement sought to restore
to African Americans the rights of citizenship
guaranteed by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth
Amendments, which had been eroded by
segregationist
JIM CROW LAWS in the South. It
fundamentally altered relations between the
federal government and the states, as the federal
government was forced many times to enforce its
laws and protect the rights of African American
citizens. The civil rights movement also spurred
the reemergence of the judiciary, including the
Supreme Court, in its role as protector of
individual liberties against majority power. In
addition, as the Reverend
MARTIN LUTHER KING Jr,
and other leaders of the movement predicted,

the movement prompted gains not only for
African Americans but also for women, persons
with disabilities, and many others.
Organized efforts by African Americans to
gain their civil rights began well before the
official civil rights movement got under way. By
1909, blacks and whites together had formed
the National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People (
NAACP), which became a
leading organization in the cause of civil rights
for African Americans. From its beginning, the
NAACP and its attorneys challenged many
discriminatory laws in court, but it was not until
after
WORLD WAR II that a widespread movement
for civil rights gathered force.
The war itself contributed to the origins of
the movement. When African Americans who
had fought for their country returned home,
they more openly resisted being treated as
second-class citizens. The movement’s first major
legal victory came in 1954, when the NAACP
won
BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION OF TOPEKA,
KANSAS, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S. Ct. 686, 98 L. Ed. 873,
in which the Supreme Court struck down laws
segregating white and black children into differ-
ent public elementary schools. With Brown, it
became apparent that African Americans had

important allies in the highest federal court and
its chief justice,
EARL WARREN.
Another catalyzing event occurred on
December 1, 1955, when
ROSA PARKS, an African
In order to protect
them from possible
violence on the part
of desegregation
opponents, African
American students at
Central High School
in Little Rock,
Arkansas, are
escorted from school
by members of the
Army’s 101st
Airborne division in
September 1957.
AP IMAGES.
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3
RD E DITION
CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT 419
American woman, was arrested after she
refused to give up her seat to a white man on
a Montgomery, Alabama, bus. The law required
African Americans to sit in the back of city
buses and to give up their seats to whites should
the white section of the bus become full.

The city’s black residents, long tired of the
indignities of
SEGREGATION, began a BOYCOTT of
city buses. They recruited King, a 27-year-old
preacher, to head the Montgo mery Improve-
ment Association, the group that organized
the boycott. The African Americans of Mon-
tgomery held out for nearly a year despite
violence—including the bombing of King’s
home—directed at them by angry whites. This
violence was repugnant to many whites and
actually increased support for the civil rights
movement among them. The boycott finally
achieved its goal on November 13, 1956, when
the Supreme Court, in Gayle v. Browder, 352
U.S. 903, 77 S. Ct. 145, declared Montgomery’s
bus segregation law unconstitutional. By
December 1956, the city was forced to desegre-
gate its buses.
Although African Americans had sporadi-
cally demonstrated against segregation laws in
previous decades, the
MONTGOMERY BUS BOYCOTT
became a turning point for their protests. It
gained significant media attention for the civil
rights cause, and it brought King to the fore as a
leader. King would go on to head the
SOUTHERN
CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE
(SCLC), which

was formed in 1957, and to guide the civil rights
movement itself. The boycott also marked the
end of reliance on
LITIGATION as the major tactic
for gaining civil rights for African Americans.
From this point on the movement also engaged
in nonviolent direct action, a technique of
CIVIL
DISOBEDIENCE
that had been used before by
pacifists, by labor movements, and by
MOHANDAS
K
. GANDHI in the struggle to secure India’s
freedom from Great Britain.
Nonviolent methods had been used by
African Americans since the 1940s, when the
Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)—a group
of blacks and whites that formed in 1942 to
lobby for equal civil rights for all—organized
nonviolent direct action to protest racial
discrimination. King described his own view
of nonviolent protest in his 1958 book Stride
toward Freedom. This type of protest worked in
part by seeking to create a sense of shame in the
opponent.
The nonviolence of the civil rights move-
ment and the power of the federal government
over the states were tested as African Americans
sought to make use of the rights that had been

confirmed by the Supreme Court. For example,
segregationist whites, including the Alabama
legislature, refused to recognize the rulings of
After the Supreme
Court outlawed
segregation in
interstate bus
terminals, the 1961
Freedom Rides were
undertaken to
challenge continuing
segregation policies in
the South. The riders
were attacked at
many of the stops,
and are shown here
being protected by
police and National
Guard troops in
Montgomery,
Alabama.
AP IMAGES
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION
420 CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
the federal judiciary regarding SCHOOL DESEGRE-
GATION
. Some whites formed citizens’ councils
to combat desegregation, and the
KU KLUX KLAN
and other reactionary whites began a campaign

of
TERRORISM, including bombings and murders,
intended to intimidate African Americans into
giving up their cause.
A significant state-federal confrontation oc-
curred in 1957 at Little Rock, Arkansas’sCentral
High School, when angry mobs of whites
attacked nine black students attempting to enroll
for classes. President
DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER had to
send in troops to enforce the Supreme Court’s
decision in Brown, confirming the right of the
students to attend the school. In 1962, when
JAMES
MEREDITH
attempted to enroll at the University
of Mississippi, President JOHN F. KENNEDY
also sent in federal military troops to uphold
desegregation.
The SCLC, which under Ki ng’s leadership
had become one of the most important civil
rights organizations in the country, in turn
spawned another influential group, the Student
Non-Violent Coordinating Committee ( SNCC,
popularly called Snick). In 1960 this group,
which was made up of both blacks and whites,
became a major player in the civil rights struggle.
SNCC attracted youths who were often dissatis-
fied by what they s aw as the unnecessarily
moderate goals and methods of the NAACP

and the SCLC. SNCC members later led voting
registration and education efforts throughout
the South, often at great personal risk. Even-
tually, the group planted the seed of factionalism
in the civil rights movement, as it became
increasingly radical and alienated from the
mainstream of the movement as represented
by King.
SNCC played an influential role in another
form of nonviolent direct action employed
in the civil rights movement: sit-ins. These
demonstrations often focused upon the whites-
only lunch counters across the South. Armed
only with a strict code of conduct that forbade
them to strike back or curse their opponents,
demonstrators endured jeers, spitting, and blows
by angry whites. One tactic associated with this
strategy was the jail-in—also called jail, no bail—
in which hundreds of people, many of them
underage youths, arrived in waves at segregated
lunch counters, were arrested for trespassing,
and proceeded to overcrowd local jails. Jail-ins
bogged down local governments and drew
national attention to the cause. In the North,
activists responded by picketing businesses,
including the Woolworth chain of stores that
operated segregated lunch counters in the
South. The right to participate in sit-ins was
upheld by the Supreme Court decisions Garner v.
Louisiana, 368 U.S. 157, 82 S. Ct. 248, 7 L. Ed.

2d 207 (1961), and Peterson v. City of Greenville,
373 U.S. 244, 83 S. Ct. 1119, 10 L. Ed. 2d 323
(1963).
The Freedom Rides were a type of nonvio-
lent direct action designed to oppose segrega-
tion in interstate buses and bus stations. They
were inspired in part by the 1960 Supreme
Court decision Boynton v. Virginia, 364 U.S.
459, 81 S. Ct. 182, 5 L. Ed. 2d 206, which
outlawed racial segregation in bus terminals and
other places of public accom modation related
to interstate transportation. Organized by
CORE in 1961, the Freedom Rides were
undertaken by six whites and seven blacks
who rode two interstat e buses from Washing-
ton, D.C., to New Orleans. Along the way, the
riders deliberately violated segregation policies
on the buses and in bus terminal rest rooms,
waiting areas, and restaurants. White mobs
Dr. Martin Luther
King Jr. and other
civil rights movement
leaders participate in
the March on
Washington on
August 28, 1963.
AP IMAGES
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3
RD E DITION
CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT 421

savagely beat Freedom Riders of both races at
different stops in the Deep South and in
Alabama, one of the buses was firebombed.
Although the 1961 Freedom Rides pro-
ceeded no farther than Jackson, Miss issippi,
they achieved their larger goal of inducing the
federal government to enforce its laws. The
administration of President Kennedy sent in
U.S. marshals to protect the riders during the
last part of their journey. An even clearer victory
was achieved in September 1961 when the
INTERSTATE COMMERCE COMMISS ION abolished all
segregated facilities in interstate transportation.
On August 28, 1963, the civil rights move-
ment reached a high point of public visibility
when it held the March on Washington.
Hundreds of thousands of people—an estimated
20 to 30 percent of them white—gathered in
front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington,
D.C., to urge Congress and the federal
government to support desegregation and voting
rights. During this occasion, King gave his
famous “IHaveaDream” speech.
The following summer, civil rights activists
in Mississippi organized another highly publi-
cized event, Freedom Summer, a campaign to
bring one thousand students, both white and
black, into the South to teach and organize
voter registration. Many civil rights groups
provided backing for this movement, including

SNCC, CORE, and the NAACP.
Throughout this period of nonviolent pro-
test, the civil rights movement continued to
suffer the effects of white violence.
MEDGAR EVERS,
an NAACP leader who was organizing a black
boycott in Jackson, was shot and killed outside
his home in 1963. Three participants in Freedom
Summer—James Chaney, an African American,
and Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner,
both whites—were killed in Mississippi in June
The Birth of the Civil Rights Movement
O
B
n December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested
in Montgomery, Alabama, for refusing to give
up her seat on a city bus to a white man. News of
Parks’s arrest quickly spread through the African
American community. Parks had worked as a
secretary for the local branch of the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
Because she was a well-respected and dignified
figure in the community, her arrest was finally enough
to persuade African Americans that they could no
longer tolerate racially discriminatory laws.
After exchanging phone calls, a group of African
American women, the Women’s Political Council,
decided to call for a boycott of the city buses as a
response to this outrage. This suggestion was greeted
with enthusiasm by local African American leaders,

including the influential black clergy.
On December 5, members of the A frican
American community rallied at the Holt Street
Baptist Church in Montgomery and decid ed to carry
out the boycott. Their resolve was in spired by the
words of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.
“We are here this evening,” King declared to
the packed church, “to say to those who have
mistreated us so long that we are tired—tired of
being segrega ted and humiliated; tired of being
kicked abo ut by the brutal feet of oppression.” He
went on to make a case for peace and nonviolence.
Contrasting the methods of nonviolence that he
envisioned for a civil rights movement, to the
methods of violence used by the racist and terrorist
Ku Klux Klan, King declared,
inourprotesttherewillbenocrossburn-
ings…. We will be guided by the highest
principles of law and order. Our m ethod will
be that of persuasion , not coercion. We will
only say to the people, “Let c onscience be
your guide”…[O]ur actions m ust be guided
by the deepest principles of o ur Christian
faith. Love must be our regulating ideal. Once
again we must hear the words of Jesus
echoing across the centuries: “Love your
enemies, bless them that curse you, and pray
for them that despitefully use you.”
With these words and these events, the long,
difficult struggle of the civil rights movemen t

began.
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION
422 CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
Million Man March
O
B
n Monday, O ctober 16, 1995, hu ndreds of
thousands of African American men gathered
on the Mall in Washington, D.C., for the Million
Man March, a daylong rally promoting personal
responsibility and racial solidarity. Organized by
Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam, the
march was one of the most well attended and
significant rallies in the history of the nation’s
capital. With its mass of men stretching from the
Capitol steps to the Washington Monument, the
gathering marked a renewed commitment to self-
empowerment and betterme nt on the part of
African Americans.
The Million Man March deliberately recalled the
1963 March on Washington, which many consider
the hi gh point of the civil rights movement. D uring
that earlier gathering, the Reverend Martin Luther
King, Jr., gave h is famous “IHaveaDream” speech.
Many speakers at the Million M an March invoked
King’s speech, noting with a combination of sorrow,
anger, and penitence that King’sdreamsfora
racially united America had not yet been realized.
Farrakhan gave the keynote address of the day.
Flanked by members of his paramilitary group, the

Fruit of Islam, and speaking from behind a bullet-proof
shield, he announced at the beginning of his speech,
“We are gathered here to collect ourselves for a
responsibility that God is placing on our shoulders to
move this nation toward a more perfect union.” He
continued to orate for over two hours, frequently
bringing home the point that African Americans still
suffer disadvantages that European Americans did not
have. “There’sstilltwoAmericas,” he declared, “one
black, one white, separate and unequal.”
In another significant speech, the Reverend
Jesse Jackson e xpanded on the religiously inspired
tone of repentance that was so muc h a part of the
Million Man March. Speaking for those in atten-
dance, the civil rights leader prayed for “God to
forgive us for our sins and the foolishness of our
ways.” Like many of the o ther speakers, he called
on African American men to take responsibi lity for
their families, to end violence and drug use in the
home and in their communities, and to make sure
their children are learnin g in school. He had this to
say about the current problems facing African
Americans:
We come here today because there is
a structural malfunction in America. It was
structured in the Constitution, and they
referred to us as three-fifths of a human
being, legally….
Why do we march? Because our babies
die earlier …. Why do we march? Because

we’re less able to get a primary or second-
ary education. Why do we march? Because
the media stereotypes us. We are projected
as less intelligent t han we are; l ess hard-
working than we work; less universal than
we are; less patriotic than we are; and more
violent than we are. Why do we march?
We’re less able to borrow money….Whydo
we march? Because we’re trapped with
second-class schools and first-class jails.
Other speakers at t he march included the
Reverend Joseph Lowery; Damu Smith, of Green-
peace; poet Maya Angelou; and Rosa Parks,
whose arrest inspired the 1955 Montgomery bus
boycott.
Away from the speakers’ podium, the men
collected on the Mall made their own history on
that day. Coming from different classes, regions,
and religion s, they were a diverse group not
beholden to any one lead er. Many men remarked
on the deep meaning the experience had for them,
on the fellowship and friendships they gained,
and on their own commitment to renewal and repair
of both themselves and their communities.
One of the most contentious issues of all
regarding the march was the attendance figure.
The National Park Service officially estimated
attendance at 400,000, whereas event organizers
pegged it at over 1.5 million. In comparison, the 1963
March on Washington attracted 250,000 participants.

The Million Ma n March drew an extremely large
share of the nation’s television audience, as well as
laudatory comments f rom many national leaders,
including P resident Bill Clinton and former general
Colin L. Powell.
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION
CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT 423
1964. Events such as these murders outraged
many in the nation and solidified popular
support for the civil rights cause.
Then Congress passed one of the most
significant pieces of civil rights legislation
ever proposed, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (42
U.S.C.A. § 2000a et seq.). This act made
Congress an equal partner with the Supreme
Court in establishing civil rights. Title II of the
act outlawed discrimination in all places of
public accommodation, including restaurants
and lunch counters, motels and hotels, gas
stations, theaters, and sports arenas. It also
allowed the
DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE to bring suit
in order to achieve desegregation in public
schools, relieving the NAACP of some of its civil
rights litigation caseload. The following year,
Congress passed another important piece of
legislation, the
VOTING RIGHTS ACT OF 1965 (42
U.S.C.A. § 1973 et seq.). This act outlawed the
voting qualifications, including literacy tests, that

whites had used to keep African Americans from
voting. It also gave the federal government
oversight powers regarding changes in state
voting laws. These laws together with federal
actions showed that the civil rights movement
had the backing of the powers of the federal
government and that no amount of resistance,
however violent, by white southerners would
impede the cause.
By the mid-1960s, the nature of the civil
rights movement began to change. African
Americans, who had been united in their
support of activities such as the Montgomery
bus boycott, began to diverge in their views over
what political action should be taken to improve
their situation. Members of different groups
within the movement increasingly expressed
their dissatisfaction with other groups. More
radical groups, including the Black Muslims and
black power proponents, voiced discontent with
the limited goals of the civil rights movem ent
and its advocacy of nonviolence.
Many of the new African American radicals
called for black separatism or nationalism—that
is, separation from white society rather than
integration with it. Not content merely to seek
civil equality, they began to press for social
and economic equality. They also questioned the
usefulness of nonviolence and no longer sought
to include whites in the movement. SNCC, for

example, became an all -black o rganization in
1966. The arguments of the African American
radicals were punctuated by urban riots such as
those in the Watts section of Los Angeles in 1965.
By the late 1960s, African Americans still
suffered from many disadvantages, including
poverty rates that were much higher than those
among whites and physical health that was
much worse. Racially motivated violence per-
sisted as well, as seen in the
ASSASSINATION of
King by a white man in 1968.
Despite these problems, the civil rights
movement had forever changed the face of
U.S. law and politics. It had led to legislation
that gave greater protection to the rights of
minorities. It had also greatly changed the role
of the judiciary in U.S. government, as the
Supreme Court had become more active in its
defense of individual rights, often in response to
litigation and demonstrations initiated by those
in the movement. In this respect, the Court and
the civil rights movement had great influence
on each other, with each reacting to and
encouraging the efforts of the other. Likewise,
the federal government had, even if hesitatingly,
enforced the rights of a persecuted minority
in the face of vigorous opposition from the
southern states.
FURTHER READINGS

Blumberg, Rhoda L. 1991. Civil Rights: The 1960s Freedom
Struggle. Farmington Hills, MI: Cengage Gale.
Chalmers, David. 2003. Backfire: How the Ku Klux Klan
Helped the Civil Rights Movement. Lanham, MD:
Rowman & Littlefield.
Friedman, Leon, ed. 1967. The Civil Rights Reader: Basic
Documents of the Civil Rights Movement. New York:
Walker.
Gray, Fred D. 2003. “Civil Rights—Past, Present and Future,
Part II.” Alabama Lawyer 64, no. 8 (January).
Johnson, Frank Minis. 2001. Defending Constitutional Rights.
Athens, GA: Univ. of Georgia Press.
Levine, Ellen, ed. 2000. Freedom’s Children: Young Civil
Rights Activists Tell Their Own Stories. New York:
Putnam Juvenile.
Liebman, James S., and Charles F. Sabel. 2003. “The Federal
No Child Left Behind Act and the Post-Desegregation
Civil Rights Agenda. North Carolina Law Review 81
(May). Available online at umbia.
edu/sabel/No%20Child%20Left.doc; website home page:
(accessed July 13, 2009).
McKissack, Fredrick L., Jr. 2004. This Generation of
Americans: A Story of the Civil Rights Movement. Grand
Rapids, MI: School Specialty Publications.
Rostron, Alan. 1999. “Inside the ACLU: Activism and Anti-
Communism in the Late 1960s.” New England Law
Review 33, no. 2 (winter).
Wilkinson, J. Harvie III. 1979. From Brown to Bakke: The
Supreme Court and School Integration, 1954–1978. New
York: Oxford Univ. Press.

GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION
424 CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
CROSS REFERENCE S
Baker, Ella Josephine; Bates, Daisy Lee Gatson; Black Panther
Party; Carmichael, Stokely; Cleaver, LeRoy Eldridge; Davis,
Angela Yvonne; Douglass, Frederick; Du Bois, William
Edward Burghardt; Jackson, Jesse; Ku Klux Klan; Liuzzo,
Viola Fauver Gregg; Marshall, Thurgood; School Desegrega-
tion; Wallace, George Corley. See also primary documents in
“From Segregation to Civil Rights” section of Appendix.
CIVIL SERVICE
The designation given to government employment
for which a person qualifies on the basis of merit
rather than political patronage or personal favor.
Civil service employees, often called civil
servants or public employees, work in a variety
of fields such as teaching, sanitation, health
care, management, and administration for the
federal, state, or local government. Legislatures
establish basic prerequisites for employment
such as compliance with minimal age and
educational requirements and residency laws.
Employees enjoy job security, promotion and
educational opportunities, comprehensive med-
ical insuran ce coverage, and pension and other
benefits often not provided in comparable
positions in private employment.
Most civil service positions are filled from
lists of applicants who are rated in descending
order of their passing scores on competitive civil

service examinations. Such examinations are
written tests designed to measure objectively a
person’s aptitude to perform a job. They are open
to the general public upon the completion and
filing of the necessary forms. Promotional
competitive examinations screen eligible employ-
ees for job advancement. Veterans of the
ARMED
SERVICES
may be given hiring preference, usually in
the form of extra points added to their examina-
tion scores, depending upon the nature and
duration of their service. Applicants may also be
required to pass a medical examination and more
specialized tests that relate directly to the per-
formance of a designated job. Once hired, an
employee may have to take an
OATH to execute his
job in
GOOD FAITH and in accordance with the law.
Unlike workers in private employment, civil
service employees may be prohibited from
certain acts that would compromise their
position as servants of the government and the
general public. For example, the federal
HATCH
ACT
(5 U.S.C.A. § 7324 et seq. [1887]) makes
participation by federal, state, and local civil
service employees in designated public electoral

and political activ i ties unlawful.
The U.S. Civil Service Commission, created
by Congress in 1883 and reorganized under the
Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 (5 U.S.C.A.
§ 1101 et seq.) as the
MERIT SYSTEMS PROTECTION
BOARD
, established a MERIT SYSTEM for federal
employment and governs various aspects of
such employment, such as job classification,
tenure, pay, training, employee relations, equal
opportunity, pensions, and health and life
insurance. Most states have comparable bodies
for the regulation of state and local civil service
employment.
CIVIL WAR
Civil war exists when two or more opposing
parties within a country resort to arms to settle a
conflict or when a substantial portion of the
population takes up arms against the legitimate
government of a country. Within
INTERNATIONAL
LAW
distinctions are drawn between minor
conflicts like riots, where order is restored
promptly, and full-scale insurrections finding
opposing parties in political as well as military
control over different areas. When an internal
conflict reaches sufficient proportions that the
interests of other countries are affected, outside

states may recognize a state of insurgency. A
recognition of insurgency, whether formal or
DE
FACTO
, indicates that the recognizing state regards
the insurgents as proper contestants for legitimate
power. Although the precise status of insurgents
under international law is not well-defined,
recognized insurgents traditionally gain the
protection afforded soldiers under international
Islamist insurgents
face off against
Somali government
officials in Mogadishu
in August 2009. Civil
war has plagued
Somalia and its
surrounding areas for
more than 18 years.
ª STR/REUTERS/CORBIS
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3
RD E DITION
CIVIL WAR 425
rules of law pertaining to war . A state may also
decide to rec ognize the conte nding group a s a
belligerent, a status that invokes more well-defined
rights and responsibilities. Once recognized as a
belligerent party, t hat party obta in s the r ights of a
belligerent party in a public war, or war between
opposing states. The belligerents stand on a par

with the parent state in t he conduct a nd settlement
of the conflict. In addition, stat es recognizing the
insurgents as belligerents must assume the duties
of
NEUTRALITY toward the con flict.
CROSS REFERENCES
U.S. Civil War; War.
CIVIL WAR AMENDMENTS
See FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT; FOURTEENTH AMEND-
MENT
; THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT.
v
CIVILETTI, BENJAMIN RICHARD
Benjamin Richard Civiletti served as U.S.
attorney general from 1979 to 1981 under
President
JIMMY CARTER. His leadership helped
the
JUSTICE DEPARTMENT regain public credi bility
in the years following the
WATERGATE scandal.
Civiletti was born July 17, 1935, in Peekskill,
New York. He received a bachelor of arts degree
from Johns Hopkins University in 1957 and a
law degree from the University of Maryland in
1961. He served from 1961 to 1962 as clerk to
William Calvin Chesnut, a U.S. district judge
for Maryland. From 1962 to 1964, he worked as
assistant U.S. attorney in Baltimore.
Civiletti then turned to private practice with

the prestigious Baltimore law firm of Venable,
Baetjer, and Howard. His skill as a trial attorney
enabled him to rise quickly in the firm. He
became a partner in 1969 and headed the
LITIGATION department two years later. He also
became highly active on various professional
committees in Baltimore and Maryland, includ-
ing the Character Committee of the Court of
Appeals of Maryland (1970–76), the Mayor’s
Commission to Investigate Baltimore City Jails
(1972–73), the Judiciary Committee of the
BAR
ASSOCIATION
of Baltimore (1972–75), and the
Maryland state legislature’s Task Force on Crime
(1975–76).
Civiletti’s reputation as an outstanding lawyer
and civic leader attracted the notice of officials
in President Carter’s administration. In 1977,
the Carter administration appointed Civiletti
assistant attorney general in charge of the
Criminal Division of the Justice Department.
He oversaw a number of sensitive cases in the
Criminal Division, including the investigation of
Bert Lance, a friend of Carter’swhoresignedas
director of the
OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET
in September 1977 after being questioned by the
Senate about alleged violations of banking laws.
Civiletti also dealt with a scandal involving alleged

attempts by South Korean government officials
to buy influence from members of Congress
and from other U.S. government officials.
In late 1977, the Carter administration
nominated Civiletti as deputy attorney general.
He was finally appointed to the post in January
1978. As deputy attorney general, Civiletti
received widespread praise for his coordination
of an interagency campaign against
WHITE-COLLAR
CRIME
.
Civiletti’s rapid rise through the ranks of the
Justice Department culminated in his appoint-
ment, in 1979, as U.S. attorney general. His
appointment came after President Carter
requested the resignation of top cabinet officials
in an attempt to improve the functioning of his
administration. The previous attorney ge neral,
GRIFFIN B. BELL, had strongly recommended
Civiletti to be his replacement. The Senate
approved Civiletti’s appointment on August 1,
1979, by a vote of 94–1.
As attorney general, Civiletti continued
policies initiated by Bell: a restructuring of the
FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION so that it might
better investigate white-collar crime; recodifica-
tion of
CRIMINAL LAW statutes; increased pursuit of
antitrust cases; and improvement of the

IMMI-
GRATION
and Naturalization Service. In addition,
Civiletti continued his earlier work to improve
cooperation between different law enforcement
divisions of the federal government.
Civiletti was also forced to respond to
international events during his tenure as attor-
ney general. After U.S. citizens were seized at
the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979, Civiletti
directed the Justice Department’seffortsto
deport Iranians who had entered the United
States illegally. Civiletti also traveled to the
INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE at The Hague,
and persuaded its judges to rule in favor of the
United States and denounce the Iranian capture
of the U.S. embassy.
After
RONALD REAGAN took office as presi-
dent in 1981, Civiletti returned to private
practice at the Venable law firm. He founded
LAW REQUIRES BOTH
A HEART AND A HEAD
.
—BENJAMIN CIVILETTI
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION
426 CIVIL WAR AMENDMENTS
the Maryland LEGAL SERVICES CORPORATION and
was the original director of the National
Institute against Prejudice and Violence. In

1992 Civiletti became the director and vice
president of the American
JUDICATURE Society,
and in 1993 he was name d chairman of the
Maryland Governor’sCommissiononWelfare
Policy. Civiletti has served as a trustee of Johns
Hopkins University and has received honorary
doctorates of law from the University of
Baltimore, Tulane University, Saint John’s
University, the University of Notre Dame,
and the University of Maryland.
In 1999 Civiletti testified before a House
Judiciary Subcommittee in opposition to the
reauthorization of the
INDEPENDENT COUNSEL Act.
The act authorized a three-judge panel to
appoint a special
PROSECUTOR to investigate
alleged illegal actions by government officials.
It drew criticism for granting these prosecutors
too much power without any effective oversight
from the executive or judicial branches of
government. In August 2001, Civiletti was sworn
in as the second member of the Independent
Review Board, a quasi-governmental agency that
was created by court order to monitor the
activities of the Teamsters Union.
As of 2009, Civiletti continues his work in
private practice where he focuses on litigation
and antitrust issues as well as white collar-

crime, corporate governance, government regu-
lation, and health law. He is a senior partner at
Venable LLP in Maryland. He is chair of
the Maryland Commission on
CAPITAL PUNISH-
MENT
and continues to recommend abolishing
the death penalty. Civiletti sits on numerous
boards, committees, councils, and task forces
and maintains a steady schedule of speaking
engagements.
FURTHER READINGS
Baker, Nancy V. 1992. Conflicting Loyalties: Law and Politics
in the Attorney General’s Office, 1789–1990. Lawrence:
Univ. Press of Kansas.
“Profiles in Power: The 1994 Power List: An Overview of the
Outstanding Members of the Legal Profession.” 1994.
National Law Journal (April 4).
Venable, Baetjer, and Howard V enable. “Civiletti, Benjamin R.”
Baltimore: West’sLegalDirectory,WESTLAW.
Benjamin Richard Civiletti 1935–
▼▼
▼▼
1925
2000
1975
1950
◆
❖
◆◆◆

◆
1935 Born,
Peekskill, N.Y.
1939–45
World War II
1950–53
Korean War
1961–73
Vietnam War
2008 Appointed chair of Maryland
Commission on Capital Punishment
◆
◆
1961 Clerked
for U.S. district
judge William
Chesnut
1964 Joined
law firm of
Venable, Baetjer
and Howard
1962–64 Served as assistant
U.S. attorney in Baltimore
1977 Appointed
assistant
attorney
general; headed
Justice
Department’s
Criminal

Division
1982–86
Served as
chair of
Maryland
Legal
Services
Corporation
2001 Sworn in
as member of
Independent
Review Board
1979 Appointed U.S. attorney general
1981 Returned to
private practice
with Venable
1992 Became director and vice
president of the American
Judicature Society
◆
◆
1995 Appointed by SEC to review
dealings of Bankers Trust
New York Corp.
Benjamin Civiletti.
AP IMAGES
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3
RD E DITION
CIVILETTI, BENJAMIN RICHARD 427