A Year in Review: 2014

2014 has been a year of challenges and opportunities in the battle for racial justice.  In the courts and in community meetings, on panels and in convenings, through media and reports, and before Congress, LDF has been on the front lines pushing for change. We also celebrated the 60^th Anniversary of LDF’s iconic victory in Brown v. Board of Education, a singular catalyst for racial equality in America and the 50^th Anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which brought meaningful transformation to countless spheres of our society. As we embark on a celebration of our 75^th Anniversary in 2015, we look back at some of our most memorable moments in 2014.

• Generation to Generation: The Future of Civil Rights
  Watch two civil rights champions, Julian Bond and Sherrilyn Ifill, share intergenerational points of view in an exclusive MSBNC one-on-one interview. 
   
• Federal Judge Strikes Texas’s Racially Discriminatory Photo ID Law
  LDF achieved a signature victory for its clients in in Texas, where a federal judge struck down a racially discriminatory photo ID law as indicated by the fact that “the Court recognized today that Texas’s photo ID law is a problem in search of a solution. The problem is that it violates the Voting Rights Act. The solution, as the Court ruled, is that the SB 14 be struck,” said LDF Deputy Director Ryan P. Haygood who made closing arguments at the trial. “The evidence in this case demonstrated that the law, like its poll tax ancestor, imposes real costs, and unjustified, disparate burdens on the voting rights of more than 600,000 registered Texas voters, a substantial percentage of whom are voters of color. That result is precisely what the Voting Rights Act was enacted to outlaw.”
   
• Brown University Political Review
  Brown Political Review goes in depth with an exclusive interview of Sherrilyn Ifill to discuss Michael Brown and the future of race relations.
   
• LDF Defends Historic Win for Fayette County, Ga.’s Voters, Receives John Lewis Freedom Award
  Historic voter turnout in Fayette County, Georgia in this year’s mid-term elections was the largest in the entire state and paved the way for the first African-American elected to the County Commission in over two centuries.  During our defense of this victory, LDF attorneys Leah Aden, Ryan Haygood and Deuel Ross were awarded the John Lewis Freedom Award.
   
• Ahead Of Midterms, Voting Rights And Wrongs In North Carolina
  Voting practices were front and center during this year’s mid-term elections.  Associate Director-Counsel Janai Nelson offers thoughts on voting rights and wrongs in North Carolina.  
   
• Lumumba Akinwole-Bandele Interviews With Canadian Broadcast Channel During NYC Protest to Stop Police Violence
  Hear LDF’s Lumumba Akinwole-Bandele at NYC Million March and see a peaceful protest unfolding in real-time in an interview with the Canadian Broadcast Channel.
   
• The Making of Ferguson with Sherrilyn Ifill and Richard Rothstein
  Before there was Michael Brown’s tragic killing, there still was a Ferguson in the making.  At a forum hosted by the Economic Policy Institute, Sherrilyn Ifill and Richard Rothstein uncover some of the structural factors that contributed to Ferguson becoming the epicenter of protests to police violence and racial inequality. 
   
• Brown at 60.
  Take a virtual tour of LDF’s Brown 60th Anniversary , highlighting captivating images, key documents and media. 
   
• New America NYC Hosts “The New Civil Rights Agenda” With LDF’s Ifill and Nelson
  LDF’s Sherrilyn Ifill joins Ta-Nehisi Coates and Johnathan Hollaway in a discussion moderated by Associate Director-Counsel Janai Nelson on the the framework for a “New Civil Rights Agenda” at New America NYC.
   
• Barriers Rooted in Race and Gender Bias Harm Educational Outcomes of African American Girls and Must Be Addressed, New Report Shows
  In a joint report with the National Women’s Law Center, we outline the obstacles and climate that face African-American girls in search of educational and economic opportunities.
   
• Sherrilyn Ifill’s Testimony Before the Senate Committee on the Voting Rights Amendment Act
  Watch Sherrilyn Ifill testify on C-CSPAN on the Voting Rights Amendment Act before the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary on the 50th anniversary of Title VII.