Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.

Civil rights include the ensuring of peoples' physical and mental integrity, life and safety; protection from discrimination on grounds such as physical or mental disability, gender, religion, race, national origin, age, status as a member of the uniformed services, sexual orientation, or gender identity; and individual rights such as privacy, the freedoms of thought and conscience, speech and expression, religion, the press, and movement.

Political rights include natural justice (procedural fairness) in law, such as the rights of the accused, including the right to a fair trial; due process; the right to seek redress or a legal remedy; and rights of participation in civil society and politics such as freedom of association, the right to assemble, the right to petition, the right of self-defense, and the right to vote.

 Martin Luther (help·info) (10 November 1483 – 18 February 1546) was a German monk, priest, professor of theology and iconic figure of the Protestant Reformation. He strongly disputed the claim that freedom from God's punishment for sin could be purchased with money. He confronted indulgence salesman Johann Tetzel with his Ninety-Five Theses in 1517. His refusal to retract all of his writings at the demand of Pope Leo X in 1520 and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Worms in 1521 resulted in his excommunication by the pope and condemnation as an outlaw by the Emperor.

Luther taught that salvation is not earned by good deeds but received only as a free gift of God's grace through faith in Jesus Christ as redeemer from sin. His theology challenged the authority of the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church by teaching that the Bible is the only source of divinely revealed knowledge and opposed sacerdotalism by considering all baptized Christians to be a holy priesthood. Those who identify with Luther's teachings are called Lutherans.

Mervyn Edward "Merv" Griffin, Jr. (July 6, 1925 – August 12, 2007) was an American television host, musician, actor, and media mogul. He began his career as a radio and big band singer who went on to appear in movies and on Broadway. From 1965 to 1986 Griffin hosted his own talk show, The Merv Griffin Show on Group W (Westinghouse) Broadcasting. Griffin created the game shows Jeopardy!, Wheel of Fortune, Click, and Merv Griffin's Crosswords with his own "Merv Griffin Enterprises" television production company. During his life Griffin was considered an entertainment business magnate.

Griffin was born into an Irish-American family on July 6, 1925, in San Mateo, California, to Mervyn Edward Griffin, Sr., a stock broker, and Rita Elizabeth Griffin (née Robinson), a homemaker. Raised as a Roman Catholic, Griffin started singing in his church choir as a boy, and by his teens was earning extra money as a church organist. This is one of the reasons he got into show business early; he was considered a piano prodigy. He attended San Mateo High School, class of 1942, and continued to aid in financing the school.

Emmett Louis Till (July 25, 1941 – August 28, 1955) was an African-American boy who was murdered in Mississippi at the age of 14 after reportedly flirting with a white woman. Till was from Chicago, Illinois, visiting his relatives in the Mississippi Delta region when he spoke to 21-year-old Carolyn Bryant, the married proprietor of a small grocery store. Several nights later, Bryant's husband Roy and his half-brother J. W. Milam arrived at Till's great-uncle's house where they took Till, transported him to a barn, beat him and gouged out one of his eyes, before shooting him through the head and disposing of his body in the Tallahatchie River, weighting it with a 70-pound (32 kg) cotton gin fan tied around his neck with barbed wire. His body was discovered and retrieved from the river three days later.

Till was returned to Chicago and his mother, who had raised him mostly by herself, insisted on a public funeral service with an open casket to show the world the brutality of the killing. Tens of thousands attended his funeral or viewed his casket and images of his mutilated body were published in black magazines and newspapers, rallying popular black support and white sympathy across the U.S. Intense scrutiny was brought to bear on the condition of black civil rights in Mississippi, with newspapers around the country critical of the state. Although initially local newspapers and law enforcement officials decried the violence against Till and called for justice, they soon began responding to national criticism by defending Mississippians, which eventually transformed into support for the killers. The trial attracted a vast amount of press attention. Bryant and Milam were acquitted of Till's kidnapping and murder, but months later, protected against double jeopardy, they admitted to killing him in a magazine interview. Till's murder is noted as a pivotal event motivating the African-American Civil Rights Movement.

Gloria St. Clair Hayes Richardson (born May 6, 1922) is best known as the leader of the Cambridge Movement, a civil rights struggle in Cambridge, Maryland in the 1960s. The Movement made significant strides against institutionalized racial discrimination in Cambridge by bringing attention to social injustices such as inadequate wages, poor housing, and poor health care.

Gloria Richardson was born in Baltimore, Maryland to John and Mable Hayes, and could trace her family roots back to St. Augustine, Florida. Her father was a pharmacist and her mother was a piano teacher/homemaker. During the early years of the Great Depression, the Hayes family moved from Baltimore to Mable Hayes' hometown of Cambridge, Maryland. The family’s move to Cambridge was the result of encouragement from Mable's father, Herbert Maynadier St. Clair, who wanted his daughter to move back to Cambridge as the city's African-American Second Ward needed and could support a pharmacist.

Herbert M. St. Clair was one of Cambridge's wealthiest and most powerful citizens. He owned and ran a butcher shop, grocery store, and funeral parlor. He owned numerous properties in the city's Second Ward. In addition to having real economic power in Cambridge, St. Clair was also the longest serving African-American member of Cambridge's City Council, having served for most of the first half of the 20th century. In his capacity as Second Ward councilman, St. Clair was instrumental at securing public funds to support the Black public schools, as well as securing jobs for Black residents at the town's canning factories. St. Clair secured these resources for Cambridge's black residents by engaging in a gradualist approach in race relations. The gradualist approach was premised on the argument that the progress of African Americans would come about only through incremental, non-confrontational steps.