Rights Leaders

Civil rights leaders in Annapolis are organizing a demonstration to counter a Ku Klux Klan rally scheduled for Oct. 29 at Lawyers Mall in front of the State House.As the Klansmen demonstrate on one side of town, civil rights groups will march down Main Street, then congregate at the First Baptist Church on West Washington St. The counter-protesters say that they will not gather or march near the Klan rally.Klan leaders have predicted that their demonstration could bring about the largest gathering of white supremacists in the city since the 1960s.

On Saturday, Feb. 2, Baltimore memorialized the Rev. Vernon N. Dobson and recognized him as a giant in the history of the local civil rights struggle ("Civil rights leader founded BUILD," Jan. 27). Testimony was given of his efforts to desegregate Gwynn Oak Park in 1963, creation of the Maryland Food Bank in 1968 and, in the 1970s, the founding of Baltimoreans United In Leadership Development. He was lauded for his work in planning the 1963 March on Washington and his marching with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. from Selma to Montgomery, Ala. in 1965.

WASHINGTON -- Civil rights leaders and Democrats denounced yesterday a measure that President Bush proposed to replace the anti-discrimination bill passed by the Senate and the House of Representatives.House Democratic leaders said that instead of considering the administration's proposal, the lawmakers would attempt to override President Bush's expected veto of the bill, the Civil Rights Act of 1990.The civil rights bill was approved by majorities in both chambers, but the votes fell short of the number needed to override a veto.

The Rev. Vernon Dobson, a Baptist minister and civil rights leader, died Saturday of complications of a stroke. He was 89. As a leading figure in Baltimore's civil rights movement, Mr. Dobson lived a life molded by the struggle for equality — a struggle he continued into his last years — and as a pastor who believed that the church should play an important part in the fight. Campaigning took a hold on Mr. Dobson's life early on. Talking to The Baltimore Sun in 1998, he described demonstrating against segregation as a young child with his mother in the 1930s.

WASHINGTON -- Civil rights leaders, engaged in last-ditch efforts to convince President Bush to sign into law the proposed Civil Rights Act of 1990, saw a glimmer of a chance yesterday that Mr. Bush might be persuaded not to carry out his threat to veto the measure.As demonstrators marched outside the White House urging Mr. Bush to sign the legislation, the civil rights leaders sought one more meeting with the president before he makes, as they said, "a final decision on this vital and historic legislation."

CIVIL RIGHTS organizations and black leaders are risking their credibility -- and perhaps their future effectiveness -- by temporizing on President Bush's nomination of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court. It is laughable to imagine that such groups as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People wouldn't already have gone on record against Thomas if he were not black. He is not only outspokenly opposed to their whole approach to civil rights but has spent seven years proving it as an official of hostile Republican administrations.

WASHINGTON -- Civil rights leaders, devastated over President Bush's veto of the proposed Civil Rights Act of 1990, said yesterday that they are determined to press again for its adoption by Congress next year -- by a margin large enough to withstand another veto.A congressional effort to override Mr. Bush's veto of the current bill is regarded likely to fall short by a slim margin."It was a terrible fight to lose," said the Rev. Benjamin L. Hooks, chairman of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the 180-organization coalition that led the lobbying for the current bill.

WASHINGTON -- A broad spectrum of civil rights leaders who rarely appear together gathered here yesterday for a discussion of racism in America and worked hard to project an image of unity. But they didn't succeed in eliminating the tensions among them.Assembled on a Washington stage were two-time presidential candidate Jesse L. Jackson; Benjamin Chavis, the new leader of the NAACP; and Louis Farrakhan, controversial leader of the Nation of Islam, along with Rep. Kweise Mfume, the Baltimore Democrat who is chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, and Rep. Maxine Waters of California, who is a member of the Black Caucus.

THE LESSON of the conviction of the Ku Klux Klan leader who ordered the 1966 murder of Vernon Dahmer is that times are not what they used to be. Thank God. No Mississippi jury 30 years ago would convict a white man of killing an African-American.Sam Bowers ordered fellow Klansmen to do a "No. 4" on Mr. Dahmer. The home of the Hattiesburg, Miss., NAACP leader was set on fire. He died fighting the blaze. Bowers ordered the deed. He was tried three times. Each trial ended with a hung jury.Mr.

Before Martin Luther King Jr. marched on Washington and before he sang "We Shall Overcome" on national television, Baltimore's civil rights leaders had picketed segregated downtown coffee shops and demonstrated to integrate the Johns Hopkins University.But such details are little-known because the city's -- and state's -- civil rights history has not been fully written.Which makes yesterday's gathering so remarkable.Perched on metal folding chairs in a church hall and rubbing their bald and grayed pates, a dozen who led Baltimore's struggle for equality more than a generation ago talked about the blood shed and the insults taken.

Lord Nickens, a long-time civil rights leader from Frederick, has died at age 99. Nickens fought for fair housing rules and served as the president of the Frederick branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People for more than 20 years. "He fought for the right of African Americans to pursue the American Dream and helped ensure equality for all Americans," U.S. Senator Ben Cardin said in a statement. " … Lord Nickens was an inspiration for all who knew him; his advocacy on behalf of the African-American community helped to change our nation.

Carl O. Snowden, the civil rights chief for the state attorney general, was found guilty Tuesday on a misdemeanor marijuana possession charge after being found in April in a car that police said reeked of the drug. Judge Michael W. Reed sentenced Snowden, 59, on the spot to a 60-day suspended prison term and a year's probation with drug and alcohol screening, and ordered him to repay court costs. He will have an opportunity after successfully completing the year's probation to overturn the conviction.

Carl O. Snowden, the civil rights chief at the Maryland Office of the Attorney General, will go before a Baltimore jury Friday afternoon on marijuana charges. Snowden, 59, was arrested in April, along with Anthony Hill, 29. Officers testified before the trial began that they approached Snowden's car when it was parked in Druid Hill Park, just off Reisterstown road. They said they found a brown cigar containing what they thought was marijuana as well as a plastic bag they believed they contained more in Hill's pocket.

Clarence M. Mitchell III, who helped steer a sweeping desegregation measure through the General Assembly, died Thursday of cancer at Seasons Hospice at the Northwest Hospital Center. He was 72. Mr. Mitchell became the nation's youngest black legislator when he was elected to the Maryland House of Delegates at age 22. He served as a delegate from 1963 to 1967, when he was elected to the Maryland Senate, serving until 1986. He also contended in city elections during the civil rights era of the 1960s.

We do not yet know exactly what led a young man to carry a semi-automatic pistol into the lobby of the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian advocacy organization, and to instigate a confrontation that left a security guard with a gunshot wound to the arm. But the suspect's volunteer work for a Washington gay rights group, early eyewitness accounts that he made statements critical of the FRC's mission, and reports that he was carrying a...

Public records show that employees of Anne Arundel County Executive John R. Leopold improperly accessed databases to gather information on at least three people on an "enemies" list, the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland said Tuesday. One of the so-called enemies was Lewis Bracy, a recently retired National Security Agency police officer and community activist who has not previously been associated with Leopold's alleged dossiers, according to the ACLU, which obtained the records through a public information request to the state.

WASHINGTON - Laying down a marker for the incoming administration and the new Congress in his final days in office, President Clinton called yesterday for enactment of a sweeping set of proposals aimed at racial reconciliation and reducing disparities between whites and minorities. In a report to Congress, he urged adoption of several policies long championed by civil rights organizations. But neither the Republican-led Congress nor President-elect George W. Bush has shown much inclination to move in the direction Clinton recommended.

The Rev. Marion C. Bascom, a leading Baltimore civil rights activist remembered for his lifetime quest for social justice, died of a heart attack Thursday at the University of Maryland Medical Center. He was 87 and lived in Reservoir Hill. "A giant has fallen," said former Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke, a close friend and a member of Douglas Memorial Community Church, where Mr. Bascom was pastor for 46 years. "He affected thousands of lives in our community and was a positive life force.

Carl O. Snowden, civil rights chief for the Maryland attorney general's office, was charged in Baltimore District Court with marijuana possession Friday — the same day he announced a voluntary leave of absence from his job — according to online court records. He was under court supervision for a drunken-driving conviction at the time of the arrest, and could face 60 days in jail if Anne Arundel County prosecutors pursue a probation-violation charge against him. "We are confident that Mr. Snowden will not be found guilty," Snowden's lawyer, Carey J. Hansel III, said in an emailed statement.