Andrew Hatanpaa Sherry Sharifan GOVT 2305 10/7/2017 Civil Rights vs. Civil Liberties Civil liberties and civil rights are both important concepts, but are distinct from each other. Civil liberties are broad, fundamental protections given to citizens. Civil rights, on the other hand, ensure that citizens are not discriminated against based on things like gender, race, etc. 1 (“Civil Rights vs. Civil Liberties.”).
One such important civil liberty is the right to free speech. Without free speech, our government could silence anyone that opposed it. Unfortunately, free speech has to be restricted in some situations, as words can hurt others. Yelling ”Fire!” in a crowded movie theater, for example, could cause people to be trampled to death. The court case Branden v. Ohio caused the Supreme Court to make the following declaration, which so far has stood: 2 “Freedoms of speech and press do not permit a State to forbid …show more content…
Although they were technically given the right to vote by the Fifteenth Amendment, many blacks in the South were kept from voting by non-explicit means. For example, harsh/rigged literacy tests were required to register to vote. These literacy tests were so hard that even many well-educated whites couldn’t pass them. “Grandfather clauses”, which allowed one to vote if their grandfather could vote, were adopted in some states, allowing whites to vote without needing to take the literary test. Former slaves or descendants of slaves, however, whose grandfathers couldn’t vote, did have to take the literacy test. The grandfather clause was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in the court case of Guinn v. United States in 1915 (Jager, Steven J.). In general, the South was affected more by race-related civil rights court cases (like the above-mentioned Guinn v. United States) than the North was, since racism used to be more prevalent in the