Civic Space and Activists
We collaborate with local, regional, and international partners to hold governments accountable, create lasting legal change, and foster an environment allowing individual and collective actors to speak out, participate in public affairs, organize, protest, and otherwise freely exercise and enjoy their human rights. Through strategic litigation and targeted advocacy, we foster collaboration and dialogue between civil society and key actors and promote cross-pollination of the most protective legal standards and innovative approaches to legal issues. Our partnership model builds on the work of local organizations on the ground by jointly strategizing and litigating cases, supporting their litigation through filing Amicus briefs, and working together to assess, advise, and build their technical capacity. From litigating landmark cases, such as the first case on lethal violence against journalists before the Inter-American Court on Human Rights or a case on the protection for peaceful assembly before the African Commission of Human and Peoples’ Rights, to developing an innovative tool that maps key ongoing judicial cases worldwide, we are committed to protecting and defending civic space and democracy around the world.
114
Countries with serious civic space restrictions
88%
Rate of impunity for crimes of violence against journalists
44 of 180
U.S. ranking in World Press Freedom Index
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Speech at the Conference of UPI Editors and Publishers, Washington, D. C.
I have a deep awareness of the role that the press plays in our society. I firmly believe that freedom of information is one of the most important weapons we have in the great struggle for freedom now going on around the world.
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Speech at the Opening of Exhibit on the Emancipation Proclamation at The National Archives in Washington, D.C.
In this generation we have seen an extraordinary change in America—a new surge of idealism in our life—a new and profound reality in our democratic order. Much has been done. But much more must be done, first because it is right, and because in making equal opportunity a reality for all Americans, we make it…
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Excerpt from Quote Magazine
I would encourage the many, rather than the few, to participate in public life at the national, state or local level.
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Address Before Young Israel of Pelham Parkway at the Concourse Plaza Hotel, New York City
We are all aware of, and delighted by, the success of the Peace Corps. The men and women who have served in it have brought to peoples around the world, in remote mountain villages and in bustling industrial cities, the true picture of the American of the sixties. It has been their spirit, their idealism,…
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Speech at the Law Day Exercises of the University of Georgia Law School, Athens, Georgia
The road ahead is full of difficulties and discomforts. But as for me, I welcome the challenge, I welcome the opportunity and I pledge my best effort—all I have in material things and physical strength and spirit to see that freedom shall advance and that our children will grow old under the rule of law.
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Speech at the National Conference of Christians and Jews Dinner, Cleveland, Ohio
While our scientists strive to lead the way to the moon, other Americans are helping new nations to decide their own destiny and keep their newly-won independence, for the race won in outer space is meaningless if we fail in our efforts to extend the cause of freedom around the globe.
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Television interview in the WTTG studios of the Metromedia Television Network
There are overtones of violence to extremist movements, which I suppose is natural when one is unwilling to discuss his position.
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Television interview in the WTTG studios of the Metromedia Television Network
I think that the extremists of both the right and left can be identified by their inability or unwillingness to accept our system as the basic vehicle for social change, and their consequent lack of a program that we would call constructive.
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Address at the National Newspaper Publishers Association, Morgan State College, Baltimore, Maryland
Our newspapers must be free to report every facet of American life for this is not only a freedom guaranteed to them but a guarantee of freedom for all Americans.
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Television interview in the WTTG studios of the Metromedia Television Network
I think that we are also seeing a resurgence of extremism in the Northern communities. When we start to move in these areas, civil rights make some people uncomfortable, because things are not the same as they have always been.
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Address at Congressional Dinner at the Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles, California
There have always been extremists of both the left and the right in our country. There probably will always be. But if responsible and progressive elements can meet the needs of our people they will remain on the fringe.
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Speech at the Dedication of the John F. Kennedy Interfaith Chapel at West Georgia College in Carrollton, Georgia
What is objectionable, what is dangerous about extremists is not that they are extreme, but that they are intolerant. The evil is not what they say about their cause, but what they say about their opponents.
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