Those who peacefully gather to express sympathy for the family of Michael Brown must have their rights respected at all times. And journalists must not be harassed or prevented from covering a story that needs to be told.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of respecting the rights of peaceful assembly and the press in the context of social issues.
In this quote, Eric Holder highlights the crucial role of peaceful protests in expressing sympathy, in this case for the family of Michael Brown, as well as the duty to uphold the rights of journalists to report on significant events. He asserts that both the right to gather peacefully and the freedom of the press are foundational to democracy and must be protected, particularly in times of social unrest.
In practice
During a press conference on civil rights, this quote can be referenced to emphasize the importance of protecting free speech.
While he was in the service, in the South and in Oklahoma, he was refused service at a couple of places where he was in uniform, and was told that African Americans, blacks, Negros, were not served. And in spite of that, I've never known a man who loved this country more than my father did.
Guantanamo is a chief recruiting tool for al-Qaida. It has put a wedge between the United States and at least some of its allies.
Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and I believe continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards
In a lot of ways, civil rights division is the conscience of the Justice Department. You can almost measure what kind of Justice Department you have by what kind of civil rights division that you have.
One of the things I learned is that you've got to deal with the underlying social problems if you want to have an impact on crime - that it's not a coincidence that you see the greatest amount of violent crime where you see the greatest amount of social dysfunction.
Communities of color don't understand what it means to be a police officer, the fear that police officers have in just being on the streets.
I appreciate our government's determination to investigate the circumstances surrounding the death of the Bytyqi brothers, which Serbia's Interior Minister has rightly called 'an exceptionally serious crime,' and hope the Serbian government's pledge of full cooperation... is matched by a final accounting of their murder.
If one of our fellow citizens can be executed with so much doubt surrounding his guilt, then the death penalty system in our country is unjust and outdated.
It is not a charity but a right, not bounty but justice, that I am pleading for. The present state of civilization is as odious as it is unjust. It is absolutely the opposite of what it should be, and it is necessary that a revolution should be made in it. The contrast of affluence and wretchedness continually meeting and offending the eye, is like dead and living bodies chained together
I cannot see any of these death penalty cases where there hasn't been a violation on the ground of either poverty or race. If we can ever get that straightened out, it will help. But, of course, the real answer to it is to do away with the death penalty.
We ask for nothing that is not ours by right, and herein lies the great moral power of our demand.
I believe that he who has less in life should have more in law.
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