Anita Hill testified at Senate hearings
Law professor whose appearance before the Senate at the October 1991 Supreme Court confirmation of Justice Clarence Thomas ignited a storm of sexual and racial controversy. Under subpoena, Hill–a black woman who had worked in 1982 as Thomas’s assistant at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission–alleged that Thomas, also black, had repeatedly pressured her for dates and made lurid remarks (most famously about the penis of porn star Long Dong Silver and a “pubic hair” on his Coke can).
During the three days of Democrat-chaired televised hearings, an estimated 30 million households watched as a panel of white male Senators attempted… Continue reading
Anti-gay rights initiatives
State referenda to block local ordinances that prohibit discrimination against homosexuals. In the November 1992 elections, Colorado’s voters approved Amendment 2–spearheaded by the Board of Colorado for Family Values–to deny gays the “special privileges” of Denver, Aspen, and Boulder laws guaranteeing civil rights for homosexuals in matters of employment and housing.
In Oregon, a similar initiative, Ballot Measure 9, was pushed by the religious Oregon Citizens Alliance but defeated after heavy campaigning on both sides. Gay and civil rights groups nationwide launched a boycott of Colorado to protest the law (a perversely abundant snowfall, however, led to a booming tourist… Continue reading
Amnesty International
First human rights group (founded 1961) systematically to catalog human rights abuses around the world. Based in London, Amnesty became a household name in the ’80s through major concert tours, such as the 1986 Conspiracy of Hope (including U2, Peter Gabriel, Lou Reed, Joan Baez, Bryan Adams, and the Police) and the 1988 Human Rights Now tour (including Bruce Springsteen, Gabriel, Sting, Tracy Chapman, and Youssou N’Dour).
Such celebrity-endorsed events (and massive direct-mail campaigns) multiplied the organization’s membership in the U.S. tenfold from some 40,000 members at the start of the ’80s.
In addition to being well respected in the… Continue reading