San Antonio ML King Day March One of the Largest in the Country

 100,000 attend the Martin Luther King Day march held ever year here in San Antonio.  Mayor Julian Castro says it is because our significant Hispanic population identifies with the civil rights struggle that King epitomizes.  We were fortunate here not to have the clashes and strikes in the 60's and 70' seen elsewhere during the civil rights movement.  In fact, San Antonio city leaders saw the approaching tide early.  They voluntarily dropped the many vestiges of segregation in the 1950's and 1960's.  Our city does suppprt ML King Day across the board.  Many large businesses here allow their employees time off to attend the march and some even organize busses to transport employees tohe march.  While far from perfect, we certainly do better than many communities across the country. 

Without Martin Luther King and Lyndon B Johnson, there would never have been a Civil Rights Act of 1964.  The Civil Rights Act of 1964 lead to all the other employment statutes that followed.  We should all be grateful. 

DOJ Turning Back to its Previous Course

 Eric Holder, the US Attorney General, is pushing the Dept. of Justice back to enforcing higher impact civil rights.  So says the New York Times.  The DOJ will focus more on high impact litigation, instead of the former administration's preference for individual cases.  DOJ can prosecute employment discrimination cases against state or local governments.  They can also prosecute employment discrimination cases against federal contractors.  

What this means is that DOJ's Office of Civil Rights will focus on pattern and practice sort of cases involving many employees, not just one or two.  That makes sense.  DOJ's resources are limited, just as the EEOC's resources are limited.  It makes more sense to focus on cases ainvolving more potential victims of discrimination.