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"A 2011 study published in Political Research Quarterly, "Does Foreign Military Intervention Help Human Rights?" examines the effects of foreign military interventions on human-rights grounds in 145 countries from 1981 to 2001. "The empirical evidence offers robust support for the assertion that supportive and neutral military interventions deteriorate the level of respect for physical integrity rights," writes the author, Dursun Peksen of East Carolina University. "Supportive intervention is likely to increase the predicted probability of extrajudicial killing by 103 percent. Neutral interventions … increase the predicted probability of extrajudicial killing by 130 percent." Peksen concludes:"

"ow, NPR Music is bringing you a 24-hour stream of music inspired by the civil rights era. There are few better ways to immerse yourself in that era than through its sounds. If you flipped on your radio in the '60s, you might have heard Nina Simone's rambunctious - yet incredibly pointed - "Mississippi Goddam" seeping through the stereo."

"The civil rights movement captured the nation's attention in 1963, and musicians proved no exception. The marches, protests and tragedies of 50 years ago influenced some of the greatest artists of the 20th century, including Aretha Franklin, Bob Dylan, Harry Belafonte and Mavis Staples. We've gathered 100 songs for a special NPR Music Radio channel that commemorates this important moment in our nation's history."

""You're hearing all of that right next to each other and that, I think, is what makes it really wonderful," Werner says. "If, on some basic level, the civil rights movement is about freedom, it's about the freedom to be who you are, not fit yourself into a niche. And I think you really feel that in the soundtrack of '63.""

King's famous "Letter from Birmingham Jail," published in The Atlantic as "The Negro Is Your Brother," was written in response to a public statement of concern and caution issued by eight white religious leaders of the South. It stands as one of the classic documents of the civil-rights movement

In an effort to prevent abuse of powers by the United States government, the Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution. Over time, various exceptions have been made to these rights with the belief that such exceptions were in the public interest. During times of war especially, the nation has struggled to maintain a reasonable balance between civil liberties and national security.

"Teaching Mockingbird suggests a central question around which a class's study of Harper Lee's novel can be organized: What factors influence our moral growth? What kinds of experiences help us learn how to judge right from wrong?  As students read and reflect on the novel, they return to this question and can begin to make deeper and broader connections between the novel and their own moral and ethical lives. They begin by considering the pivotal moments in their lives that shape who they are and their senses of right and wrong.  Then they analyze how the characters in To Kill A Mockingbird change over the course of the story, identifying pivotal moments in the story that influence how the characters think about morality and justice.  The complete Teaching Mockingbird guide also introduces models of moral development that have emerged from the field of developmental psychology, which students can use as the basis for even deeper character analysis."

"So what's to be done? Civic energy is going to have to come from the ground up to strengthen social cohesion, civic participation, and our ability to solve big challenges together. One big idea to strengthen our civic stocks and create pathways to better outcomes in education and employment is universal national service - an opportunity for every 18-28 year-old to perform at least a year of civilian national service through well-known groups like City Year, Teach for America and Habitat for Humanity or to join one of the branches of our Armed Services. Another bold idea would be to engage philanthropy in a $1 billion annual campaign to restore American history and civic education to its rightful place in American schools. We need "problems of American democracy" courses that teach students about the importance of bedrock American values, educate them through real-world experience about institutions that secure rights, check power, and enable public service, and provide practical skills to turn the wheels of a diverse democracy to address public problems. A final idea is for community leaders from different parties and sectors to experiment boldly with ways to fix public problems. "

The civil rights legend has almost become "St. Martin" to schoolchildren, a larger-than-life figure whose sole achievement was delivering a speech about a dream, Winbush said. "It's like we boiled him down to four words - 'I have a dream' - the same way we've boiled Malcolm X down to 'by any means necessary,'" he said. "I think the students are in danger of getting an image of Dr. King … ascending into heaven." That image is inconsistent with how King was viewed before his death in 1968, Winbush said. "Dr. King was a peacemaker but the vast majority of people in this country, black and white, viewed him as a troublemaker because he told this country, 'Let's live up to what's in the Constitution and Declaration of Independence.' I hope that students and teachers go beyond those four words and realize that he lived after the 'I Have a Dream' speech," he said.

"Our own study of over 1.25 million stories published online between April 1, 2015 and Election Day shows that a right-wing media network anchored around Breitbart developed as a distinct and insulated media system, using social media as a backbone to transmit a hyper-partisan perspective to the world. This pro-Trump media sphere appears to have not only successfully set the agenda for the conservative media sphere, but also strongly influenced the broader media agenda, in particular coverage of Hillary Clinton."

"It didn't take long for civic journalism to move from election experiments to deep enterprise work on major issues plaguing communities - race, drugs, education, the economy. Techniques involved listening to how the communities framed their problems and convening conversations about how they might be addressed. Yet major differences emerged between civic journalism and traditional investigative journalism. Unlike traditional investigative journalism, civic journalism's enterprise projects, "didn't have bad guys attached to them," Friedland said. Rather they mined the muddy swamps of tough issues enveloping communities. These projects focused less on measuring the nature of the engagement and instead focused on outcomes. The most systematic and deepest research into civic journalism was undertaken in 2002 by Friedland and PhD student Sandy Nichols. The Pew Center opened its files on 651 civic journalism projects that had applied for funding or for recognition in the Knight-Batten Awards for Excellence in Civic Journalism between 1994 and 2001. For months, Nichols read every project and coded them by engagement strategies, outcomes and story frames. You can read the final report or the executive summary. Among its highlights: At least one fifth of all U.S. daily newspapers - 322 of the nation's 1,500 dailies practiced civic journalism during that time. They hailed from 220 cities in all but three states. But, the authors said, the real number, if you included projects that didn't cross the Pew Center's transom, was much higher Newspaper editors asserted that their civic journalism increased public deliberation, civic problem solving, volunteerism and changed public policy.a  96 percent of the civic journalism projects used an "explanatory" story frame to cover public issues instead of a more traditional "conflict" frame, which often reports two opposing viewpoints. "The clear shift to explanatory frames is perhaps one of civ

"This lesson examines some of the obstacles to equal education that African Americans faced in the 20th century, the segregation that triggered the Civil Rightsmovement, and the different strategies people used to effect change. Students begin by reviewing the basic tenets of the U.S. Constitution that guarantee equal rights for all people, specifically, the Fourteenth Amendment, which was used toargue the case for school desegregation in the courts. Next, students work in small groups to study the impact of segregated schools and how individuals and communitiesresponded. Each small group focuses on a specific response or strategy. Finally, students come together to present what they learned, the advantages and disadvantages of thestrategy they examined, and what they might do in that situation and in a similar situation today."

"On this day in 1963, more than 200,000 people marched in Washington, D.C. with that question in mind. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of that march, we're revisiting the articles written by four American icons who helped lead the country toward that historic moment."

Without question, Tom Robinson would be better off today. In fact, Tom Robinson could live a life completely unimaginable and unrecognizable to the characters in Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird" - the groundbreaking book, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this week.  No lynchings.  No all white male juries.  No presumption of guilt based on skin color.  No state-sanctioned discrimination. Yet, Tom would realize a sad, but undeniable truth -- that racism is still alive and all too well in contemporary America.  He would know it in the economic injustice that has left a disproportionate number of African-Americans -- 25 percent -- living in poverty.   He would see it in the criminal injustice that has left a disproportionate number of African-American men - 6 times the number of white, non-Hispanic men -- living in jails and prisons.  And he would feel it in the hate-filled, racist rhetoric that still defines too much of our political discourse - rhetoric that questions the Civil Rights Act, rhetoric that questions the birthplace of our President.

It was just such an exciting time across the board, so much change going on -the end of World War I, women getting the right to vote, Prohibition being enacted, of course, which is where the series begins. It was just a great time of upheaval. And when I had read about the character Steve plays, Nucky Thompson, this was just such a perfect guy to set a series around.

CIVIL WAR TO CIVIL RIGHTS A NATIONAL DIGITAL HISTORY PROJECT FOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS  The coming year, 2011, marks the 150th anniversary of president-elect Abraham Lincoln's inaugural train trip from Springfield, Illinois to Washington, DC and the presidency of a nation on the eve of civil war. Inspired by that anniversary, the National Park Service invites high schools classes to join in a national digital project on the broader theme of inaugurations - new beginnings.

Nearly 100 years have passed since their ideologies clashed concerning the best way to improve the plight of African-Americans. Dubois said we could show white people we were their equals through intellectualism and liberal arts education. Here's the full text of Dubois' The Souls of Black Folk. And Mr. Dubois' response to Mr. Washington is here. Washington said that the only way we could become equal was to create our own businesess, learn trades and create an economic base in which we owned the capital, land and economic resources. Here's Washington's Up From Slavery in full text. So I ask you -- a 100 years later, who won? Who had the best suggestion? Was there a best suggestion? Were they both right?

Washington and DuBois's impact on the history of the Civil Rights Movement.

Amnesty International is calling on Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah to stop the execution of a Lebanese man sentenced to death for "sorcery."The international rights group condemned the verdict and demanded the immediate release of Ali Hussain Sibat, former host of a popular call-in show in which he would predict the future and give out advice to his audience.

The Texas State Board of Education adopted a social studies and history curriculum Friday that amends or waters down the teaching of the civil rights movement, slavery, America's relationship with the United Nations, and hundreds of other items. The ideological debate over the guidelines, which drew intense scrutiny beyond Texas, will be used to teach about 4.8 million Texas students for the next 10 years. The standards also will be used by textbook publishers who often develop materials for other states based on those approved in Texas