Bipolar disorder, which used to be called manic depressive illness or manic depression, is a mental disorder characterized by wide mood swings from high (manic) to low (depressed). Periods of high or irritable mood are called manic episodes.
James Byrd, Jr. was not engaged in a federally-protected activity when he was lynched and killed. The Matthew Shepard Act expanded the 1969 Federal Hate Crime Law to cover these and other types of brutal murders.
That same year, in a sign of growing world opposition to state-enforced racial discrimination, the United Nations (UN) declared apartheid a crime against humanity, a motion that took on real meaning four years later, in 1977, when the UN adopted a mandatory embargo on arms sales to South Africa.