HR 41 (LSB 2666HH (3) 86)

HOUSE RESOLUTION NO. 41

BY  ABDUL-SAMAD, KOESTER, LANDON, BROWN-POWERS, McCONKEY, BEARINGER, STUTSMAN, HUNTER, ANDERSON, STAED, STECKMAN, GASKILL, GAINES, MEYER, and SIECK

A Resolution marking more than 50 years of this country’s struggle for civil rights and honoring the achievements of the civil rights movement.

   WHEREAS, the United States Supreme Court struck down the “separate but equal” doctrine that provided the basis for state-sanctioned discrimination through its 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, drawing attention to the plight of African Americans; and
   WHEREAS, a turbulent decade followed that saw civil rights activists promote the use of nonviolent protest and civil disobedience to bring about change and produced many African-American leaders, including Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, and Malcolm X, some of whom sacrificed their lives in the name of freedom and equality; and
   WHEREAS, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference organized a march on March 7, 1965, from Selma, Alabama, to the state capitol in Montgomery that quickly ended when police attacked the protesters with tear gas and clubs and inspired hundreds of civil rights supporters to gather in Selma after hearing accounts of the “Bloody Sunday” attack; and
   WHEREAS, the federal government produced landmark legislation with the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Civil Rights Act of 1968, among others; and
   WHEREAS, the judicial and legislative changes that occurred throughout the 1950s and 1960s greatly expanded the opportunities available not only to African Americans, but also to other minorities, women, disabled individuals, and other victims of discrimination; NOW THEREFORE,

   BE IT RESOLVED BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, That the House of Representatives remembers the struggle of all who worked, and continue to work, to achieve equality and freedom for everyone and the achievements of the civil rights movement.