Friday, July 04, 2014

Why We Asked Experts To Annotate The Civil Rights Act : Code Switch : NPR

Why We Asked Experts To Annotate The Civil Rights Act : Code Switch : NPR: This Wednesday, we're commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act with an app that lets you explore the legislation in detail. We encourage you to peruse the text of the landmark bill alongside comments from journalists, lawyers, authors and others on how it evolved, and what it means to us today.

Here at Code Switch, we're especially fascinated with how race plays out in America, and how that's changed in the recent past. The civil rights revolution of the '60s and its lingering effects have been a focus of ours.

So as the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act approached, we wondered what has changed about the country and its laws since 1964, when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the bill. What ripples has it created in the intervening years? What does the bill mean to us today, and how does its language resonate with us?

A lot of us had never read the bill in its entirety before, so we pulled up the document and sought help from a slew of experts with backgrounds in law, journalism, history and social justice. They weighed in and made comments, bringing the text to life with their insights and perspectives.