Racial Injustice

CCR has been fighting for racial justice since our first day. We organized legal support for and defended marchers who were arrested on the historic Selma-to-Montgomery march in 1965; litigated scores of Voting Rights Act cases; led challenges to de facto segregation that held states responsible for affirmative duties to racial equality; and established a national Anti-Ku Klux Klan Network in the late 1970s. In recent decades, our Telephone Justice Campaign challenged the exploitive phone rates New York State prisoners had to pay, and we supported public school teachers of color. Now, from taking on the FDNY’s discriminatory hiring and the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk practices to providing legal support to the Black Lives Matter movement, CCR continues the unfinished work of the Civil Rights Movement. We use the landmark legislation passed during the 1960s to challenge both intentional discrimination and the discriminatory impacts of government practices and policies, and we work closely with grassroots organizations that are driving the demand for reform. Racial injustice is deeply intertwined with many other injustices the Center is fighting —from abusive immigration practices to Muslim profiling to mass incarceration – and we explicitly make connections among different struggles. Above all, CCR is committed to addressing the structural and systemic nature of racism in our society.