Kristen Clarke presents keynote at Georgetown conference on white supremacy

Kristen Clarke, President and Executive Director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, presented the keynote address at the Center for Jewish Civilization at Georgetown University’s 2019 conference titled “Contemporary White Supremacy in America: What are its Links to the Nazi Past?” on April 10.

In her speech, Clarke discussed the rise in racial violence, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, xenophobia, homophobia, and more, and how critical it is that we understand the roots of this crisis and use this foundation to identify effective strategies for combating the scourge of hate that we face today. She spoke to how the Lawyers’ Committee’s work to combat hate crimes and white supremacy through the Stop Hate Project, one of the most robust anti-hate and anti-extremism projects in the nation.

“This legacy of racial violence still lies within the DNA of our nation,” Clarke said. Between 1882 and 1968, there were over 4,743 recorded lynchings in the U.S., and the majority of victims were African American. And, since the FBI began publishing data on hate crimes in 1995, African Americans remain the single group most frequently targeted for hate; the latest FBI data shows a 17% increase between 2016 and 2017.

She underscored that we need our federal government to do its part, but shamefully, today’s national climate at the federal level fuels the fire of hatred we see today. The Trump administration has reversed important progress made to protect the most vulnerable among us. But civil rights lawyers can attempt to stop the reversal of rights.

“We must ensure that we never normalize racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, Islamaphobia, and other dangerous ideologies that have left on a dark stain on the soul of our democracy,” Clarke said. “Civil rights lawyers are finding ways to use the law to fight back and hold white supremacists accountable.”