The landmark Civil Rights Act was signed into law on July 2, 1964. Just a year after the Civil Rights Act passed, Martin Luther King, Jr. famously remarked, “What does it profit a man to be able to eat at an integrated lunch counter if he doesn’t have enough money to buy a hamburger?” Activists have always understood the movement to be about social and economic justice. Yet, despite great progress, people of color still face disproportionately high rates of economic disadvantage.
Please join the Center for American Progress’ Poverty to Prosperity and Progress 2050 teams and Generation Progress for an intergenerational conversation between civil rights activists working toward change. Informed by 50 years of progress as well as hard-learned lessons, moving forward, how do we build power to address civil rights and economic security?
Opening remarks:
Neera Tanden, President, Center for American Progress
Featured speakers:
Julian Bond, Chairman Emeritus, NAACP
Carmen Berkley, Civil, Human and Women’s Rights Director, AFL-CIO
Nikki Lewis, Executive Director, Jobs with Justice-DC
Lisa Hasegawa, Executive Director, National Coalition for Asian American Community Development
Moderator:
Melissa Boteach, Vice President of Half in Ten and Poverty to Prosperity, Center for American Progress