ADVERTISEMENTWASHINGTON ― The former top official at the Obama Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division is taking over the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a 67-year-old organization sometimes described as the lobbying arm of the civil rights movement. Melina Mara/The Washington Post via Getty Images Vanita Gupta became head of the Civil Rights Division soon after the protests in Ferguson, Missouri. In October 2014, just months after the unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, Gupta was named acting head of the Civil Rights Division. The groups that make up the Leadership Conference, she said, are at the “heart of the resistance” fighting rollbacks of civil rights protections. She sees the Leadership Conference as a “nerve center” for both defending civil rights on the federal level and pushing forward to advance civil rights on the state level.

Source: Huffington Post March 23, 2017 22:07 UTC