First Civil Rights March
On 27 April 1968, NICRA held a rally to protest at the banning of a republican Easter parade. On 24 August 1968 the Campaign for Social Justice (CSJ), NICRA, and other groups, held the first civil rights march in Northern Ireland from Coalisland to Dungannon, in County Tyrone. Loyalists organised a counter demonstration in an effort to get the march banned and in fact the rally was officially banned. Despite this the march took place and passed off without incident. The publicity surrounding the march encouraged other protesting groups to form branches of NICRA.
On 27 August 1968, the Derry Housing Action Committee (DHAC), which protested against housing discrimination and provision in Derry, organised another protest in the Guildhall, Derry council chamber. Immediately after the protest Eamon Melaugh telephoned NICRA and invited them to organise a march in Derry.
Read more about this topic: Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association
Famous quotes containing the words civil, rights and/or march:
“I’ve never been afraid to step out and to reach out and to move out in order to make things happen.”
—Victoria Gray, African American civil rights activist. As quoted in This Little Light of Mine, ch. 3, by Hay Mills (1993)
“When and under what conditions is the black man to have a free ballot? When is he in fact to have those full civil rights which have so long been his in law?”
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)
“With two thousand years of Christianity behind him ... a man can’t see a regiment of soldiers march past without going off the deep end. It starts off far too many ideas in his head.”
—Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894–1961)