When was the Civil Rights Act passed?
Civil Rights Act of 1866
The Civil Rights Act of 1866, , enacted April 9, 1866, was the first United States federal law to define citizenship and affirm that all citizens are equally protected by the law. It was mainly intended, in the wake of the American Civil War, to protect the civil rights of persons of African descent born in or brought to the United States. This legislation was passed by Congress in 1865 and vetoed by U.S. President Andrew Johnson. In April 1866 Congress again passed the bill to support the Thirteenth Amendment. Johnson again vetoed it, but a two-thirds majority in each chamber overcame the veto to become law without presidential signature.
16th Street Baptist Church bombing
On July 2, 1964, President Lyndon Johnson signed into effect the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In attendance were various leaders of the Civil Rights Movement including Martin Luther King Jr. This resulting legislation outlawed any discrimination based on race, color, religion, gender, or national origin; thus ensuring full, equal rights of African-Americans before the law.
Diane Nash
In 1963 President John F. Kennedy appointed Nash to a national committee to promote civil rights legislation. Eventually his proposed bill was passed as the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Emancipation Proclamation
In the same speech, Kennedy announced he would introduce comprehensive civil rights legislation to the United States Congress which he did a week later (he continued to push for its passage until his assassination in November 1963). Historian Peniel E. Joseph holds Lyndon Johnson's ability to get that bill, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, passed on July 2, 1964 was aided by "the moral forcefulness of the June 11 speech" which turned "the narrative of civil rights from a regional issue into a national story promoting racial equality and democratic renewal".
Civil rights movement
On June 21, 1964, three civil rights workers disappeared: James Chaney, a young black Mississippian and plasterer's apprentice; and two Jewish activists, Andrew Goodman, a Queens College anthropology student; and Michael Schwerner, a CORE organizer from Manhattan's Lower East Side. They were found weeks later, murdered by conspirators who turned out to be local members of the Klan, some of them members of the Neshoba County sheriff's department. This outraged the public, leading the U.S. Justice Department along with the FBI (the latter which had previously avoided dealing with the issue of segregation and persecution of blacks) to take action. The outrage over these murders helped lead to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
U.S. Route 80 in Alabama
The Alabama section of US 80 played an integral role in the events of the American Civil Rights Movement. Selma, like many cities and towns in the American southeast, was subject to Jim Crow laws, which enforced acts of racial segregation among the populous. Dating back to 1877, the Jim Crow laws were meant to separate the American black and white populations, while ensuring both had institutions and accommodations of equal quality. A notion commonly referred to as "separate but equal". In reality, the acts did little more than legally force the southeast's black population to reside in poor living conditions and also denied black citizens entry into most white establishments such as businesses and public institutions. Following the events surrounding the landmark ruling of the Supreme Court case of "Brown v. Board of Education" in 1954, desegregating American schools and the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955 and 1956 leading to a similar ruling regarding public bus segregation by the Supreme Court, marked the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement, meant to abolish American segregation. The movement lead to protests across the United States, including the March on Washington in 1963, where civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech. Though the civil rights protests were often met with violent retaliation, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ensured much of the goals the protesters and activists had pushed for became legal reality. However, remaining Jim Crow laws still prevented most black Americans in the southeast from voting. Initial efforts to surpass this problem during the Freedom Summer campaign in Mississippi was met with the murder of three activists involved in the project. Further retaliation by pro-segregationists, ranging from bombings to police brutality lead to an increase in protests against such violence as well as voting restrictions in the year 1965. In Dallas County, there were over 15,000 black citizens eligible for voter registration, but only 300 of those people were actually registered.
Following earlier failed demonstrations in Selma and the death of Jimmie Lee Jackson in Marion, Martin Luther King Jr. began working with other activists to create a march from Selma to the state capitol in Montgomery. The march was to follow the route of US 80 between the two cities. Despite King being unable to attend due to illness and preferring to postpone the event, the first attempt at the march started without him on March 7, 1965 with 525 individuals in attendance. The march continued east on US 80 until reaching the south side of the Edmund Pettus Bridge over the Alabama River. The Alabama National Guard, under orders of Governor George Wallace, awaited the protesters wearing gas masks and brandishing weapons. Joining the Guard were local policemen and "possemen", civilians authorized to combat the protesters by local law enforcement. The resistance proceeded to violently beat the protesters with batons and tear gas, while others trampled protesters with horses while also spitting and cracking bullwhips on the demonstrators. Over 50 participants had to be taken to the hospital. News agencies such as the American Broadcasting Company however, had recorded the event on television cameras, then proceeded to interrupt regular programing to display the footage nationwide. The event would come to be known as "Bloody Sunday". News of the attacks lead to public outrage across the United States. King organized a second protest on March 9, with the support of nearly 400 new demonstrators from across the nation, despite a court issued restraining order. This time, the resistance on the other end of the bridge cleared an open pathway on US 80 for the protesters to proceed rather than continue to block the highway. King, fearing the move was a trap, cancelled the march.
Growing pressure and outrage towards caused President Lyndon Johnson to give a public address to Congress in support to the marchers. As well as the address, Johnson pressured Congress to pass legislation which would become the Voting Rights Act of 1965. This landmark legislation abolished practices such as literacy tests, which had prevented the majority of black citizens in the southeast from voting. Though the legislation would not be passed until August 6. Judge Frank Minis Johnson overturned the earlier restraining order, ruling the protesters had every right to march along US 80 or any public under rights guaranteed by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. A third attempt at the march lead by King began on March 21, 1965 with almost 3,200 people attending. Along the march, demonstrators were met by widespread taunting including signs and posters directing verbal attacks towards the march as well as a radio store in Selma playing "Bye Bye Blackbird" towards the group. In Lowndes County, US 80 reduced from four lanes to two. Due to restrictions, the number of protesters through the county was greatly reduced to 300 persons. Despite the reduction, the march continued to push forward over the next 4 days. On March 25, the march reached the city limits of Montgomery. Upon entering the city, the number of demonstrators rose to 30,000 individuals. The marchers left US 80 and arrived at the state capitol on Dexter Street, where King gave his "How Long, Not Long" speech to a giant crowd on top of a flatbed trailer. President Johnson had arranged for the Alabama National Guard, United States Army, Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States Marshals Service to protect the demonstrators from harm during the march along US 80.
In 1989, Representative John Lewis of Georgia, one of the marchers from the 1965 demonstrations, introduced the Selma to Montgomery National Trail Study Act, which enabled the National Park Service to study a potential designation of US 80 between Montgomery and Selma as a National Trail. The study was approved on July 3, 1990, signed into affect by President George H.W. Bush as Public Law 101-321. The National Park Service tasked historians Luke Lambert and Barbara Tagger to conduct the study. In April 1993, the study was completed and awaited Congressional approval. Congress approved of the designation passing legislation to President Bill Clinton. President Clinton proceeded to sign Public Law 104-333 into effect on November 12, 1996, officially designating the 54 mile stretch of US 80 as the Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail. The stretch of road had previously been designated as a National Scenic Byway by the Secretary of Transportation on September 19, 1996. President Clinton himself joined a commemorative march with King's widow, Coretta Scott King, and several other civil rights activists on the 35th Anniversary of Bloody Sunday.
Civil Rights Act of 1964
Kennedy called the congressional leaders to the White House in late October 1963 to line up the necessary votes in the House for passage. The bill was reported out of the Judiciary Committee in November 1963 and referred to the Rules Committee, whose chairman, Howard W. Smith, a Democrat and staunch segregationist from Virginia, indicated his intention to keep the bill bottled up indefinitely.
Civil rights movement
King reached the height of popular acclaim during his life in 1964, when he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. His career after that point was filled with frustrating challenges. The liberal coalition that had gained passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 began to fray.
Civil rights movement
The civil rights movement (also known as the African-American civil rights movement, the American civil rights movement and other terms) in the United States was a decades-long struggle with the goal of enforcing constitutional and legal rights for African Americans that other Americans already enjoyed. With roots that dated back to the Reconstruction era during the late 19th century, the movement achieved its largest legislative gains in the mid-1960s, after years of direct actions and grassroots protests that were organized from the mid-1950s until 1968. Encompassing strategies, various groups, and organized social movements to accomplish the goals of ending legalized racial segregation, disenfranchisement, and discrimination in the United States, the movement, using major nonviolent campaigns, eventually secured new recognition in federal law and federal protection for all Americans.
Multicultural education
10 years later the Civil Rights Act of 1964, known as "the most sweeping civil rights legislation since Reconstruction" was enacted. It outlawed discrimination in public spaces and establishments, made it illegal for any workplace and employment discrimination, and it made integration possible for schools and other public spaces possible. Students of exception are also a group that civil rights advocates have been fighting for in the implementation of quality multicultural education. With the continued support from civil rights groups coming out of their struggle, many of these students found support on a scale much larger due to the major push in education to provide equity to all students.
Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act
The law is named for its two primary sponsors, Daisy Elliott, a Democrat from Detroit, and Melvin L. Larsen, a Republican from Oxford, and passed in 1976 with 25 votes in the Michigan Senate and 79 votes in the Michigan House of Representatives. It was signed into law by Michigan Governor William Milliken on January 13, 1977 and went into effect on March 31, 1977.
Civil rights campaign in Seattle
On April 11, 1968, one week after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1968. "Fair housing" had become federal policy, and Seattle had lost its opportunity to get out in front of the federal government on the matter. Eight days later, on April 19, 1968, the Seattle City Council unanimously passed a fair housing ordinance (Ordinance 96619). This time, sponsored by Smith and five other members of the 9-member council, it passed with an emergency clause, making it impossible to appeal by referendum by the voters.
Civil Rights Act of 1990
The Civil Rights Act of 1990 was a bill that, had it been signed into law, would have made it easier for litigants in race or sex discrimination cases to win. It was introduced into the 101st United States Congress on February 7, 1990 by Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) in the United States Senate, and by Augustus Hawkins (D-CA) in the House of Representatives. While making its way through Congress, the bill was considered to be civil rights groups' #1 legislative priority. Soon before the bill made it to the desk of then-President of the United States George H. W. Bush, it was criticized by the Harvard Law School professor Charles Fried. In a "New York Times" op-ed, Fried wrote that descriptions of the bill as the most important civil rights legislation in a quarter-century were "...a public relations flimflam perpetrated by a cabal of overzealous civil rights plaintiffs' lawyers." He concluded by saying that Bush should "...veto this bill in its present form."
Archibald Cox
The civil rights legislation that Kennedy was unable to see pass during his lifetime received the needed momentum from his death and the legislative skill of President Johnson. In 1964 the public accommodations bill passed as the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The obvious constitutional attack on the legislation was its constitutionality under the Fourteenth Amendment because it sought to regulate conduct that was not "state action." Cox and Assistant Attorney General and Head of the Civil Rights Division Burke Marshall, however founded the legislation on Congress's power to regulate interstate commerce. Although both John and Robert Kennedy questioned the optics of using the Commerce Clause, they did not object. Cox had no difficulty having the Court uphold the statute on that basis when he argued the cases in October.
Civil Rights Act of 1866
John Bingham and other congressmen argued that Congress did not yet have sufficient constitutional power to enact this law. Following passage of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868, Congress ratified the 1866 Act in 1870.
Abraham Akaka
The U.S. Civil Rights Commission was created by the Civil Rights Act of 1957, and each state has an unpaid appointed advisory board on the commission, with term limits on their service. Hawaii had been represented on the advisory board prior to its admission to statehood on August 21, 1959. When new board members were appointed in 1962, Akaka was appointed chairman, at which point he became active on a national level, joining the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. on the 1963 march on Washington, D.C. In 1965, Akaka provided flower leis worn by King and his advisors on the third Selma Civil Rights March.
Murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner
Lyndon B. Johnson and civil rights activists used the outrage over the activists' deaths to gain passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which he signed on July 2. This and the Selma to Montgomery marches of 1965 contributed to passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which Johnson signed on August 6 of that year.
Civil Partnership and Certain Rights and Obligations of Cohabitants Act 2010
The act was passed in the Dáil without a vote on 1 July 2010 and by the Seanad on 8 July 2010 by a vote of 48–4. It was signed into law by the President on 19 July 2010. The Minister for Justice and Law Reform Dermot Ahern said: "This is one of the most important pieces of civil rights legislation to be enacted since independence. Its legislative advance has seen an unprecedented degree of unity and support within both Houses of the Oireachtas."
1960s
Noted legislative achievements during this phase of the civil rights movement were passage of Civil Rights Act of 1964, that banned discrimination based on "race, color, religion, or national origin" in employment practices and public accommodations; the Voting Rights Act of 1965, that restored and protected voting rights; the Immigration and Nationality Services Act of 1965, that dramatically opened entry to the U.S. to immigrants other than traditional European groups; and the Fair Housing Act of 1968, that banned discrimination in the sale or rental of housing.
No-FEAR Act
President George W. Bush signed it into law on May 15, 2002, making it the first United States civil rights law of the 21st Century.
Civil liberties
Civil liberties in the United Kingdom date back to Magna Carta in 1215 and 17th century common law and statute law, such as the 1628 Petition of Right, the Habeas Corpus Act 1679 and the Bill of Rights 1689. Parts of these laws remain in statute today and are supplemented by other legislation and conventions that collectively form the uncodified Constitution of the United Kingdom. In addition, the United Kingdom is a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights which covers both human rights and civil liberties. The Human Rights Act 1998 incorporates the great majority of Convention rights directly into UK law.
Civil Rights Act of 1991
The Civil Rights Act of 1991 is a United States labor law, passed in response to United States Supreme Court decisions that limited the rights of employees who had sued their employers for discrimination. The Act represented the first effort since the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to modify some of the basic procedural and substantive rights provided by federal law in employment discrimination cases. It provided the right to trial by jury on discrimination claims and introduced the possibility of emotional distress damages and limited the amount that a jury could award.
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The legislation had been proposed by U.S. President John F. Kennedy in June 1963, but opposed by filibuster in the Senate. After Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963, U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson pushed the bill forward, which in its final form was passed in the U.S. Congress by a Senate vote of 73–27 and House vote of 289–126. The Act was signed into law by U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson on July 2, 1964, at the White House.
Civil rights movements
Noted achievements of the Civil Rights Movement include the judicial victory in the "Brown v. Board of Education" case that nullified the legal article of "separate but equal" and made segregation legally impermissible, and the passages of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, . that banned discrimination in employment practices and public accommodations, passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that restored voting rights, and passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 that banned discrimination in the sale or rental of housing.
History of slavery in Texas
African Americans immediately started raising legal challenges to disfranchisement, but early Supreme Court cases, such as "Giles v. Harris" (1903), upheld the states. Through organizations such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), African Americans continued to work to regain their ability to exercise their civil and voting rights as citizens. The civil rights movement led to the U.S. Congress and President Lyndon Johnson passing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which protected the rights of all citizens to integrated public facilities and enforcement of voting rights.
Civil Rights Act of 1957
Although the Act's passage through seemed to indicate a growing federal commitment to the cause of civil rights, the legislation was limited. Alterations to the bill made the Act difficult to enforce; by 1960, black voting had increased by only 3%. Its passage showed varying degrees of willingness to support civil rights.
Bill of Rights 1689
During the 17th century, there was renewed interest in Magna Carta. The Parliament of England passed the Petition of Right in 1628 which established certain liberties for subjects. The English Civil War (1642–1651) was fought between the King and an oligarchic but elected Parliament, during which the idea of a political party took form with groups debating rights to political representation during the Putney Debates of 1647. Subsequently, the Protectorate (1653–1659) and the English Restoration (1660) restored more autocratic rule although Parliament passed the Habeas Corpus Act in 1679, which strengthened the convention that forbade detention lacking sufficient cause or evidence.
New South
The beginnings of the Civil Rights era in the 1960s led to a revival of the term to describe a South which would no longer be held back by Jim Crow Laws and other aspects of compulsory legal segregation. Again, the initially slow pace of civil rights reforms, notably in the areas of school desegregation and voting rights, at first made the "New South" more of a slogan than a description of the South as it actually was; the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 brought an era of far more rapid change.
Report to the American People on Civil Rights
The Report to the American People on Civil Rights was a speech on civil rights, delivered on radio and television by United States President John F. Kennedy from the Oval Office on June 11, 1963 in which he proposed legislation that would later become the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Expressing civil rights as a moral issue, Kennedy moved past his previous appeals to legality and asserted that the pursuit of racial equality was a just cause. The address signified a shift in his administration's policy towards strong support of the civil rights movement and played a significant role in shaping his legacy as a proponent of civil rights.
Birmingham campaign
The reputation of Martin Luther King Jr. soared after the protests in Birmingham, and he was lauded by many as a hero. The SCLC was much in demand to effect change in many Southern cities. In the summer of 1963, King led the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom where he delivered his most famous speech, "I Have a Dream".
King became "Time"'s Man of the Year for 1963 and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.
The Birmingham campaign, as well as George Wallace's refusal to admit black students to the University of Alabama, convinced President Kennedy to address the severe inequalities between black and white citizens in the South: "The events in Birmingham and elsewhere have so increased cries for equality that no city or state or legislative body can prudently choose to ignore them." Despite the apparent lack of immediate local success after the Birmingham campaign, Fred Shuttlesworth and Wyatt Tee Walker pointed to its influence on national affairs as its true impact. President Kennedy's administration drew up the Civil Rights Act bill. After being filibustered for 75 days by "diehard southerners" in Congress, it was passed into law in 1964 and signed by President Lyndon Johnson. The Civil Rights Act applied to the entire nation, prohibiting racial discrimination in employment and in access to public places. Roy Wilkins of the NAACP, however, disagreed that the Birmingham campaign was the primary force behind the Civil Rights Act. Wilkins gave credit to other movements, such as the Freedom Rides, the integration of the University of Mississippi, and campaigns to end public school segregation.
Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law
The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights under Law, or simply The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights or Lawyers' Committee, is a civil rights organization founded in 1963 at the request of President John F. Kennedy.
Civil rights campaign in Seattle
In summer 1964, the Freedom Summer was occurring in Mississippi and (on July 2) President Johnson signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act. In Seattle, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) initiated the Drive for Equal Employment in Downtown Stores (DEEDS), with a goal that minorities would constitute 24% of new hires in those stores. Through January 1965, these stores were subjected to boycotts. CORE also organized pickets and sit-ins at local real estate industry offices, but a court-ordered injunction terminated the latter protests.
Civil Rights Cases
Black American plaintiffs, in five cases from lower courts, sued theaters, hotels and transit companies that refused to admit them, or had excluded them from "white only" facilities. The Civil Rights Act of 1875 had been passed by Congress and entitled everyone to access accommodation, public transport, and theatres regardless of race or color. This followed the American Civil War (1860–1865), President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation (1 January 1863) to end slavery, and the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution (9 July 1868) which reads "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." To implement the principles in the Fourteenth Amendment, Congress had specified that people could not be discriminated against on grounds of race or color in access to services offered to the general public. The business owners contended that the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was itself unconstitutional, and an Act of Congress should not be able to interfere with their private rights of property.
Equal Educational Opportunities Act of 1974
The civil rights movement brought about controversies on busing, language rights, desegregation, and the idea of “equal education". The groundwork for the creation of the Equal Educational Opportunities Act first came about with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which banned discrimination and racial segregation against African Americans and women. In 1968 the U.S. Department of Education, formerly the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, issued a statement saying that school officials are responsible for providing equal educational opportunities for all, regardless of one’s nationality, race, or color. A 1970 memorandum was then passed, clarifying the responsibilities of school officials. In addition to requiring separate classes to be created for students less than proficient in the English language, communication between students’ parents and the school was to be required to be conducted in a language understood by the parents.
History of the United States Democratic Party
The party's dramatic reversal on civil rights issues culminated when Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The act was passed in both House and Senate by a Republican majority and support from Democrats in Northern and Western states. Many Democrats and Republicans from the South opposed the act. The year 1968 marked a major crisis for the party. In January, even though it was a military defeat for the Viet Cong, the Tet Offensive began to turn American public opinion against the Vietnam War. Senator Eugene McCarthy rallied intellectuals and anti-war students on college campuses and came within a few percentage points of defeating Johnson in the New Hampshire primary:Johnson was permanently weakened. Four days later, Senator Robert Kennedy, brother of the late President, entered the race.
Antipornography Civil Rights Ordinance
In spite of the defeat in the courts, Dworkin, MacKinnon, and some other feminists continued to advocate versions of the civil rights ordinance, organizing campaigns to place it on the ballot as a voter initiative in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1985 (where it was voted down in the referendum 58%–42%), and then again in Bellingham, Washington in 1988 (where it was passed). The American Civil Liberties Union filed suit against the city of Bellingham after the ordinance was passed, and the federal court again struck the law down on First Amendment grounds.
Virginia
The civil rights movement gained many participants in the 1960s. It achieved the moral force and support to gain passage of national legislation with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In 1964 the United States Supreme Court ordered Prince Edward County and others to integrate schools. In 1967, the Court also struck down the state's ban on interracial marriage with "Loving v. Virginia". From 1969 to 1971, state legislators under Governor Mills Godwin rewrote the constitution, after goals such as the repeal of Jim Crow laws had been achieved. In 1989, Douglas Wilder became the first African American elected as governor in the United States.
Civil Rights Act of 1960
The new legislation was proposed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in his message to the 86th Congress on February 5, 1959, when he stated "that every individual regardless of his race, religion, or national origin is entitled to the equal protection of the laws."
Southern United States
The northern Democrats’ support of civil rights issues culminated when Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which ended legal segregation and provided federal enforcement of voting rights for blacks. In the presidential election of 1964, Barry Goldwater’s only electoral victories outside his home state of Arizona were in the states of the Deep South where few blacks could vote before the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987
The Civil Rights Restoration Act, or Grove City Bill, was a US legislative act that specified that recipients of federal funds must comply with civil rights laws in all areas, not just in the particular program or activity that received federal funding. The Act was first passed by the House in June 1984 (375–32) but failed to pass in either chamber after divisions occurred within the civil rights coalition over the issue of abortion. In January 1988, the Senate accepted an amendment by Senator John Danforth (R-MO), which added "abortion-neutral" language to the Bill, a move opposed by the National Organization for Women but resulted in passage of the bill in both houses.
Voting Rights Act of 1965
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a landmark piece of federal legislation in the United States that prohibits racial discrimination in voting. It was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson during the height of the Civil Rights Movement on August 6, 1965, and Congress later amended the Act five times to expand its protections. Designed to enforce the voting rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, the Act secured the right to vote for racial minorities throughout the country, especially in the South. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the Act is considered to be the most effective piece of federal civil rights legislation ever enacted in the country.
Presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower
Towards the end of his second term, Eisenhower proposed another civil rights bill designed to help protect voting rights, but Congress once again passed a bill with weaker provisions than Eisenhower had requested. Eisenhower signed the bill into law as the Civil Rights Act of 1960. By 1960, 6.4% of Southern black students attended integrated schools and thousands of black voters had registered to vote, but millions of African Americans remained disenfranchised.
Presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson
Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law on July 2. Legend has it that as he put down his pen Johnson told an aide, "We have lost the South for a generation", anticipating a coming backlash from Southern whites against Johnson's Democratic Party. The act banned racial segregation in public accommodations, banned employment discrimination on the basis of race or gender, and strengthened the federal government's power to investigate racial and gender employment discrimination. The law later upheld by the Supreme Court in cases such as "Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States".
Civil liberties in the United Kingdom
Civil liberties in the United Kingdom have a long and formative history. This is usually considered to have begun with Magna Carta of 1215, a landmark document in British constitutional history. Development of civil liberties advanced in common law and statute law in the 17th and 18th centuries, notably with the Bill of Rights 1689. During the 19th century, working-class people struggled to win the right to vote and join trade unions. Parliament responded with new legislation, and attitudes to universal suffrage and liberties progressed further in the aftermath of the first and second world wars. Since then, the United Kingdom's relationship to civil liberties has been mediated through its membership of the European Convention on Human Rights. The United Kingdom, through Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe, led the drafting of the Convention, which expresses a traditional civil libertarian theory. It became directly applicable in UK law with the enactment of the Human Rights Act 1998.
Civil Rights Act of 1957
After the Kennedy assassination, now-President Lyndon Johnson helped secure passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which made racial discrimination and segregation illegal, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which abolished the poll tax and other means of keeping blacks and the poor from registering to vote and from voting, established record-keeping and oversight, and provided for federal enforcement in areas with documented patterns of discrimination or low voter turnout.
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The bill was called for by U.S. President John F. Kennedy in his Report to the American People on Civil Rights of June 11, 1963, in which he asked for legislation "giving all Americans the right to be served in facilities which are open to the public—hotels, restaurants, theaters, retail stores, and similar establishments"—as well as "greater protection for the right to vote". Kennedy delivered this speech in the aftermath of the Birmingham campaign and the growing number of demonstrations and protests throughout the southern United States. Kennedy was moved to action following the elevated racial tensions and wave of black riots in the spring 1963.
Post–civil rights era in African-American history
The post–civil rights era in African-American history is defined as the time period in the United States since Congressional passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968, major federal legislation that ended legal segregation, gained federal oversight and enforcement of voter registration and electoral practices in states or areas with a history of discriminatory practices, and ended discrimination in renting or buying housing.
Civil Rights Act of 1960
The Civil Rights Act of 1960 () is a United States federal law that established federal inspection of local voter registration polls and introduced penalties for anyone who obstructed someone's attempt to register to vote. It was designed to deal with discriminatory laws and practices in the segregated South, by which blacks and Mexican Texans had been effectively disfranchised since the late 19th and start of the 20th century. It extended the life of the Civil Rights Commission, previously limited to two years, to oversee registration and voting practices. The act was signed into law by President Dwight D. Eisenhower and served to eliminate certain loopholes left by the Civil Rights Act of 1957.
Civil rights movement
Many of the initiatives resulted from Robert Kennedy's passion. The younger Kennedy gained a rapid education in the realities of racism through events such as the Baldwin-Kennedy meeting. The president came to share his brother's sense of urgency on the matter, resulting in the landmark Civil Rights Address of June 1963 and the introduction of the first major civil rights act of the decade.
Civil and political rights
In the 1860s, Americans adapted this usage to newly freed blacks. Congress enacted civil rights acts in 1866, 1871, 1875, 1957, 1960, 1964, 1968, and 1991.
King assassination riots
The riots quickly revived the bill. On April 5, Johnson wrote a letter to the United States House of Representatives urging passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, which included the Fair Housing Act. The Rules Committee, "jolted by the repeated civil disturbances virtually outside its door," finally ended its hearings on April 8. With newly urgent attention from White House legislative director Joseph Califano and Speaker of the House John McCormack, the bill—which was previously stalled that year—passed the House by a wide margin on April 10.
Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review
The journal was established in Spring 1966 in the wake of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In their first issue the editors of the new publication wrote that the review "is an emblem and achievement of the collaboration" between the Harvard Civil Liberties Research Service, the Law Students Civil Rights Research Council, and the Harvard Civil Rights Committee, three newly formed organizations that had recently noticed the dearth of legal material on civil rights:
Still, there is today hardly a journal which regularly and completely dedicates its pages to the civil rights revolution and the modern manifestations of the relation between citizen and state. Nor is there any review steadily providing Southern lawyers with library ammunition. Nor does any publication capitalize on the burgeoning interest in rights and liberties among this new generation of law students. Nor does any review endeavor to link together the students and faculties of the various law schools in such a cooperative enterprise.
History of the United States
Starting in the late 1950s, institutionalized racism across the United States, but especially in the South, was increasingly challenged by the growing Civil Rights Movement. The activism of African-American leaders Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which launched the movement. For years African Americans would struggle with violence against them but would achieve great steps toward equality with Supreme Court decisions, including "Brown v. Board of Education" and "Loving v. Virginia", the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968, which ended the Jim Crow laws that legalized racial segregation between whites and blacks.
Civil rights movement
From 1890 to 1908, southern states passed new constitutions and laws to disenfranchise African Americans and many poor whites by creating barriers to voter registration; voting rolls were dramatically reduced as blacks and poor whites were forced out of electoral politics. After the landmark Supreme Court case of "Smith v. Allwright" (1944), which prohibited white primaries, progress was made in increasing black political participation in the Rim South and Acadiana – although almost entirely in urban areas and a few rural localities where most blacks worked outside plantations. The "status quo ante" of excluding African Americans from the political system lasted in the remainder of the South, especially North Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, until national civil rights legislation was passed in the mid-1960s to provide federal enforcement of constitutional voting rights. For more than sixty years, blacks in the South were essentially excluded from politics, unable to elect anyone to represent their interests in Congress or local government. Since they could not vote, they could not serve on local juries.
Christmas Comes But Once a Year (Mad Men)
During the Christmas party, references are made to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This piece of legislation was enacted on July 2, 1964, by the administration of Lyndon B. Johnson, who would later be elected president in his own right in November that year.
Civil Rights Act of 1991
The 1991 Act combined elements from two different civil right acts of the past: the Civil Rights Act of 1866, better known by the number assigned to it in the codification of federal laws as Section 1981, and the employment-related provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, generally referred to as Title VII. The two statutes, passed nearly a century apart, approached the issue of employment discrimination very differently: Section 1981 prohibited only discrimination based on race or color, but Title VII also prohibited discrimination on the basis of sex, religion, and national origin. Section 1981, which had lain dormant and unenforced for a century after its passage, allowed plaintiffs to seek compensatory damages and trial by jury. Title VII, passed in the 1960s when it was assumed that Southern juries could not render a fair verdict, allowed only trial by the court and provided for only traditional equitable remedies: back pay, reinstatement, and injunctions against future acts of discrimination. By the time the 1991 Act was passed, both allowed for an award of attorneys fees.
Herbert Brownell Jr.
Although it was weakened by the US Senate, he drafted the legislative proposal that ultimately became the Civil Rights Act of 1957, which was the first civil rights law enacted since 1875. Because of his strong stance in favor of civil rights, Brownell became very unpopular in the South.
Civil Rights Act of 1960
The House of Representatives approved the Senate amendments on April 21, 1960 by a vote of 288-95 and the bill was signed into law by President Eisenhower on May 6, 1960. No Republican Senators voted against the Bill.
Civil Rights Act of 1968
One impetus for the law's passage came from the 1966 Chicago Open Housing Movement. Also influential was the 1963 Rumford Fair Housing Act in California, which had been backed by the NAACP and CORE. and the 1967 Milwaukee fair housing campaigns led by James Groppi and the NAACP Youth Council. Senator Walter Mondale advocated for the bill in Congress, but noted that over successive years, a federal fair housing bill was the most filibustered legislation in US history. It was opposed by most Northern and Southern senators, as well as the National Association of Real Estate Boards. A proposed "Civil Rights Act of 1966" collapsed completely because of its fair housing provision. Mondale commented that:
David Nolan (American author)
He was a founder in 2002 of ACCORD (an acronym for "Anniversary to Commemorate the Civil Rights Demonstrations"), a group designed to honor the participants in the St. Augustine movement during the Civil Rights Movement. Demonstrations in St. Augustine in 1963 and 1964 led by Dr.Robert Hayling and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. resulted in the passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, one of the two great legislative accomplishments of the movement. ACCORD has launched a permanently marked Freedom Trail of historic sites of the civil rights movement that has gained international publicity.
During Black History Month in 2009, he received the Governor's Points of Light Award for outstanding community service.
On July 2, 2009, the 45th anniversary of the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, he received the President's Volunteer Service Award from Barack Obama.
Civil rights movement
On June 11, 1963, George Wallace, Governor of Alabama, tried to block the integration of the University of Alabama. President John F. Kennedy sent a military force to make Governor Wallace step aside, allowing the enrollment of Vivian Malone Jones and James Hood. That evening, President Kennedy addressed the nation on TV and radio with his historic civil rights speech, where he lamented "a rising tide of discontent that threatens the public safety." He called on Congress to pass new civil rights legislation, and urged the country to embrace civil rights as "a moral issue...in our daily lives." In the early hours of June 12, Medgar Evers, field secretary of the Mississippi NAACP, was assassinated by a member of the Klan. The next week, as promised, on June 19, 1963, President Kennedy submitted his Civil Rights bill to Congress.
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 () is a landmark civil rights and U.S. labor law in the United States that outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. It prohibits unequal application of voter registration requirements, racial segregation in schools, employment, and public accommodations.
Report to the American People on Civil Rights
In the end, the most vocal support for the civil rights bill came from the participants of the August 28 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The demonstration made Kennedy anxious, but its organizers ensured that it would be used to support his legislation. The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing (in which four black choir girls were killed) in September increased public support for the bill, but legislative progress stagnated in Congress by the efforts of southern Democrats and conservative Republicans. In an interview that month, the President acknowledged the political cost of his new stance on civil rights: "It has caused a good deal of feeling against the Administration in the South—also, I suppose, in other parts of the country. ... I lost some southern states in 1960 so I suppose I will lose some, maybe more, in 1964. I am not sure that I am the most popular figure in the country today in the South, but that is all right." Still, he remained optimistic about his legislation, commenting in his last-ever press conference on November 14, "However dark the land looks now, I think that 'westward look, the land is bright,' and I think that next summer it may be." On November 22, 1963 Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. Lyndon B. Johnson was immediately sworn in as President and addressed a joint session of Congress, saying, "No memorial oration or eulogy could more eloquently honor President Kennedy's memory than the earliest possible passage of the civil rights bill for which he fought so long." After an intense legislative effort, the bill passed Congress and was signed into law by Johnson as the Civil Rights Act on July 2, 1964.
Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act
The Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act was passed in 1976, signed into law by Michigan Governor William Milliken on January 13, 1977, and went into effect on March 31, 1977. It has been amended directly or indirectly nearly 20 times.
Civil Rights Act of 1875
President Grant had wanted an entirely different law to help him suppress election-related violence against blacks and Republicans in the South. Congress did not give him that, but instead wrote a law for equal rights to public accommodations that was passed as a memorial to Grant's bitterest enemy, the late Senator Charles Sumner. Grant never commented on the 1875 law, and did nothing to enforce it says historian John Hope Franklin. Grant's Justice Department ignored it and did not send copies to US attorneys, says Franklin, while many federal judges called it unconstitutional before the Supreme Court shut it down. Franklin concludes regarding Grant and Hayes administrations, "The Civil Rights Act was never effectively enforced." Public opinion was opposed, with the black community in support. Historian Rayford Logan looking at newspaper editorials finds the press was overwhelmingly opposed.
History of Mississippi
The case of the young murdered activists captured national attention. They were found to have been murdered by members of the Klan, some of them members of the Neshoba County sheriff's department. President Johnson used the outrage over their deaths and his formidable political skills to bring about passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, signed July 2. It banned discrimination in public accommodations, employment and education. It also had a section about voting, but voting protection was addressed more substantially by passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Thomas B. Curtis
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 originated in Curtis' office in 1962, and it was mainly Republican pressure from Curtis and his fellow Republican Judiciary Committee member William McCulloch of Ohio that forced John F. Kennedy to make his first, hesitant message on civil rights in April 1963. Curtis' defense of civil rights was rooted partly in the Lincoln tradition of the GOP, but more simply in the belief that civil rights were at the base of the American philosophy of government and Judeo-Christian morality and that their defense was "the most fundamental issue that confronts any government at any time," as he wrote in 1952.
Civil Rights Act of 1964
After the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, the Supreme Court upheld the law's application to the private sector, on the grounds that Congress has the power to regulate commerce between the States. The landmark case "Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States" established the constitutionality of the law, but it did not settle all of the legal questions surrounding the law.
Racial segregation
Institutionalized racial segregation was ended as an official practice during the civil rights movement by the efforts of such civil rights activists as Clarence M. Mitchell Jr., Rosa Parks, and Martin Luther King Jr., working for social and political freedom during the period from the end of World War II through the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act in 1965 supported by President Lyndon B. Johnson. Many of their efforts were acts of non-violent civil disobedience aimed at disrupting the enforcement of racial segregation rules and laws, such as refusing to give up a seat in the black part of the bus to a white person (Rosa Parks), or holding sit-ins at all-white diners.
Civil Rights Act of 1960
After the subsequent intensive acts of 1964 and 1965, the act of 1957 and the Civil Rights Act of 1960 were deemed ineffective for the firm establishment of civil rights. The later legislation had firmer ground for the enforcement and protection of a variety of civil rights, where the acts of 1957 and 1960 were largely limited to voting rights. The Civil Rights Act of 1960 dealt with race and color but omitted coverage of those discriminated against for national origin, although Eisenhower had called for it in his message to Congress.
Civil Rights Act of 1957
The goal of the 1957 Civil Rights Act was to ensure that all Americans could exercise their right to vote. By 1957, only about 20% of blacks were registered to vote. Despite being the majority in numerous counties and congressional districts in the South, most blacks had been effectively disfranchised by discriminatory voter registration rules and laws in those states since the late 19th and early 20th centuries that were heavily instituted and propagated by Southern Democrats. Civil rights organizations had collected evidence of discriminatory practices, such as the administration of literacy and comprehension tests and poll taxes. While the states had the right to establish rules for voter registration and elections, the federal government found an oversight role in ensuring that citizens could exercise the constitutional right to vote for federal officers: electors for president and vice president and members of the US Congress.
National Council of Churches
The NCC continued to be closely intertwined with the civil rights movement throughout the 1950s and 1960s. NCC created a Race Relations Sunday to educate and call to action mainline Christians nationwide. In 1961, Andrew Young left his position with the National Council of Churches to join the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), eventually becoming that organization's executive director. When the Civil Rights Act was introduced in 1964, NCC lobbied heavily for its swift adoption.
Benjamin Butler
Butler wrote the initial version of the Civil Rights Act of 1871 (also known as the Ku Klux Klan Act). After his bill was defeated, Representative Samuel Shellabarger of Ohio drafted another bill, only slightly less sweeping than Butler's, that successfully passed both houses and became law upon Grant's signature on April 20. Along with Republican Senator Charles Sumner, Butler proposed the Civil Rights Act of 1875, a seminal and far-reaching law banning racial discrimination in public accommodations. The Supreme Court of the United States declared the law unconstitutional in the 1883 Civil Rights Cases.
John Mercer Langston
During 1870, Langston assisted Republican Senator Charles Sumner from Massachusetts with drafting the civil rights bill that was enacted as the Civil Rights Act of 1875. The 43rd Congress of the United States passed the bill in February 1875 and it was signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant on March 1, 1875.
Anti-discrimination law
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was the first major development in anti-discrimination law in the US, though prior civil rights legislation (such as the Civil Rights Act of 1957) addressed some forms of discrimination, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was much broader, providing protections for race, color, religion, sex, or national origin in the areas of voting, education, employment, and public accommodations. This landmark legislation led the way for other federal legislation, which expanded upon the protected classes and forms of discrimination prohibited under federal legislation, such as the Fair Housing Act or the Americans with Disabilities Act. These protections have also been expanded through the courts interpretation of these pieces of legislation. For example, the 7th and 2nd circuit courts have both ruled that employment discrimination based on sexual orientation is a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. In addition to federal legislation, there are numerous state and local laws that address discrimination that is not covered by these laws.
Ralph Neas
From 1981 through 1995, Neas served as Executive Director of the nonpartisan Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR), the legislative arm of the civil rights movement. Neas coordinated successful national campaigns that led to the Civil Rights Act of 1991; the Americans with Disabilities Act; the Civil Rights Restoration Act;, the Fair Housing Act Amendments of 1988; the Japanese American Civil Liberties Act; the preservation of the Executive Order on Affirmative Action (1985-1986 and 1995-1996); and the 1982 Voting Right Act Extension. Final passage on all these laws averaged 85% in both the House of Representatives and the Senate; in addition, another 15 Leadership Conference on Civil Rights legislative priorities were enacted into law in the 1981-1995 period.
United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division
The U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division is the institution within the federal government responsible for enforcing federal statutes prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, sex, disability, religion, and national origin. The Division was established on December 9, 1957, by order of Attorney General William P. Rogers, after the Civil Rights Act of 1957 created the office of Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, who has since then headed the division. The head of the Civil Rights Division is an Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights (AAG-CR) appointed by the President of the United States. The current AAG-CR is Eric Dreiband.The Division enforcesIn addition, the Division prosecutes actions under several criminal civil rights statutes which were designed to preserve personal liberties and safety.
Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
As its first enforcement legislation, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866, guaranteeing black Americans citizenship and equal protection of the law, though not the right to vote. The amendment was also used as authorizing several Freedmen's Bureau bills. President Andrew Johnson vetoed these bills, but Congress overrode his vetoes to pass the Civil Rights Act and the Second Freedmen's Bureau Bill.
Civil rights movement
After the American Civil War and the abolition of slavery in the 1860s, the Reconstruction Amendments to the United States Constitution granted emancipation and constitutional rights of citizenship to all African Americans, most of whom had recently been enslaved. For a period, African Americans voted and held political office, but they were increasingly deprived of civil rights, often under Jim Crow laws, and subjected to discrimination and sustained violence by whites in the South. Over the following century, various efforts were made by African Americans to secure their legal rights. Between 1955 and 1968, acts of nonviolent protest and civil disobedience produced crisis situations and productive dialogues between activists and government authorities. Federal, state, and local governments, businesses, and communities often had to respond immediately to these situations, which highlighted the inequities faced by African Americans across the country. The lynching of Chicago teenager Emmett Till in Mississippi, and the outrage generated by seeing how he had been abused, when his mother decided to have an open-casket funeral, mobilized the African-American community nationwide. Forms of protest and/or civil disobedience included boycotts, such as the successful Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955–56) in Alabama; "sit-ins" such as the influential Greensboro sit-ins (1960) in North Carolina and successful Nashville sit-ins in Tennessee; marches, such as the 1963 Birmingham Children's Crusade and 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches (1965) in Alabama; and a wide range of other nonviolent activities.
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Constitutionality of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was, at the time, in some dispute as it applied to the private sector. In the landmark "Civil Rights Cases" the United States Supreme Court had ruled, in 1883, that Congress did not have the power to prohibit discrimination in the private sector, thus stripping the Civil Rights Act of 1875 of much of its ability to protect civil rights.
South Carolina Republican Party
In the 1960s, the Civil Rights movement intensified in the South, and in early July 1964, the Civil Rights Act was passed. The Act, passed with the support of Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson, ended legal segregation in public accommodations.
Alphonzo E. Bell Jr.
Bell also supported every major piece of Civil Rights legislation considered in the Congress during his tenure, often working at odds with his own party, which frequently opposed these bills, and became a tireless advocate early on for the legislation which eventually became the Civil Rights Act of 1964. As the bill needed substantial bipartisan support from Republicans to gain approval to counteract the opposition of Southern Democrats, Bell contributed significantly to passage of the Civil Rights Act in the House by helping to round up the necessary Republican votes. In this effort, he worked closely with and became close personal friends with Clarence Mitchell, Jr. of the NAACP. He and Mitchell walked side by side during the March on Washington with Martin Luther King and both were honored by being seated behind the podium in front of the Lincoln Memorial as King delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech in 1963.
New Orleans
The Civil Rights Movement's success in gaining federal passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 renewed constitutional rights, including voting for blacks. Together, these resulted in the most far-reaching changes in New Orleans' 20th century history. Though legal and civil equality were re-established by the end of the 1960s, a large gap in income levels and educational attainment persisted between the city's White and African-American communities. As the middle class and wealthier members of both races left the center city, its population's income level dropped, and it became proportionately more African American. From 1980, the African-American majority elected primarily officials from its own community. They struggled to narrow the gap by creating conditions conducive to the economic uplift of the African-American community.
William Moore McCulloch
As the ranking member of the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, William McCulloch took a leading role in the civil rights movement. He introduced civil rights legislation months before Kennedy presented his act to Congress. Representative McCulloch had only a few of African-American constituents and so few votes to gain from introducing or supporting civil rights legislation. McCulloch's influence with the Civil Rights Act led President John F. Kennedy to declare, "Without him it can't be done." McCulloch was recognized by Kennedy's successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, under whom the act was passed, as "the most important and powerful political force" in passing the Act.
White House Conference on Civil Rights
The White House Conference on Civil Rights was held June 1 and 2, 1966. The aim of the conference was built on the momentum of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 in addressing discrimination against African-Americans. The four areas of discussion were housing, economic security, education, and the administration of justice.
Voting Rights Act of 1965
In the wake of the events in Selma, President Johnson, addressing a televised joint session of Congress on March 15, called on legislators to enact expansive voting rights legislation. He concluded his speech with the words "we shall overcome", a major anthem of the Civil Rights Movement. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was introduced in Congress two days later while civil rights leaders, now under the protection of federal troops, led a march of 25,000 people from Selma to Montgomery.
Ned Breathitt
Passage of the national Civil Rights Act of 1964 had paved the way for an even stronger civil rights bill in the 1966 legislative session. The Assembly easily passed the Kentucky Civil Rights Act opening all public accommodations to people of every race and prohibiting racial discrimination in employment by firms that employed eight or more people. The act applied to many kinds of businesses not covered by the federal statute, and approximately ninety percent of the businesses in Kentucky were affected, compared to only sixty percent that were covered by the federal statute. The act was the first of its kind passed in a southern state. In 1966, Breathitt was presented with the Lincoln Key Award for his leadership in the bill's passage. In 1966 and 1967, he was chair of the Southern Governors' Conference's Committee on Regional and Interstate Cooperation. He was also the only state governor named to the President's Council on Human Rights.
Ivan Allen Jr.
On July 26, 1963, Allen spoke before the U.S. Congress and the nation in support of what became the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He was the only prominent white southern elected official to do so. As a result, there were death threats made towards the Allen family, and many white friends and constituents never spoke to him again. Just one month after Allen's testimony, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech, also calling for racial equality and an end to discrimination, later proving to be a very defining moment in the Civil Rights Movement.
Emanuel Celler
"Deliberately and calculatedly, McCarthyism has set before itself the task of undermining the faith of the people in their Government. It has undertaken to sow suspicion everywhere, to set friend against friend and brother against brother. It deals in coercion and in intimidation, tying the hands of citizens and officials with the fear of the smear attack."
As Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee from 1949 to 1973 (except for a break from 1953–55 when the Republicans controlled the House), Celler was involved in drafting and passing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Civil Rights Act of 1968 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In January 1965, Celler proposed in the House of Representatives the Twenty-fifth Amendment, which clarifies an ambiguous provision of the Constitution regarding succession to the presidency. Also in 1965, he proposed and steered to passage the Hart-Celler Act, which eliminated national origins as a consideration for immigration. This was the culminating moment in Celler's 41-year fight to overcome restriction on immigration to the United States based on national origin. The US Gun Control Act of 1968 directly evolved from Celler's Bill H.R. 17735.
William Ferguson Reid
African Americans gained national support with the Civil Rights Movement through the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. An important outcome was Federal oversight and enforcement of voting rights. Under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, decisions affecting elections became subject to clearance by the U.S. Department of Justice.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Eisenhower told District of Columbia officials to make Washington a model for the rest of the country in integrating black and white public school children. He proposed to Congress the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and of 1960 and signed those acts into law. The 1957 act for the first time established a permanent civil rights office inside the Justice Department and a Civil Rights Commission to hear testimony about abuses of voting rights. Although both acts were much weaker than subsequent civil rights legislation, they constituted the first significant civil rights acts since 1875.
Lyndon B. Johnson
Passing the civil rights bill in the House required getting it through the Rules Committee, which had been holding it up in an attempt to kill it. Johnson decided on a campaign to use a discharge petition to force it onto the House floor. Facing a growing threat that they would be bypassed, the House rules committee approved the bill and moved it to the floor of the full House, which passed it shortly thereafter by a vote of 290–110. In the Senate, since the tax bill had passed three days earlier, the anti-civil-rights senators were left with the filibuster as their only remaining tool. Overcoming the filibuster required the support of over twenty Republicans, who were growing less supportive due to the fact that their party was about to nominate for president a candidate who opposed the bill. According to Caro, it was ultimately Johnson's ability to convince Republican leader Everett Dirksen to support the bill that amassed the necessary Republican votes to overcome the filibuster in March 1964; after 75 hours of debate, the bill passed the Senate by a vote of 71–29. Johnson signed the fortified Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law on July 2. Legend has it that the evening after signing the bill, Johnson told an aide, "I think we just delivered the South to the Republican party for a long time to come", anticipating a coming backlash from Southern whites against Johnson's Democratic Party.
Civil Rights Act of 1968
The Civil Rights Act of 1968, (), also known as the Fair Housing Act, is a landmark part of legislation in the United States that provided for equal housing opportunities regardless of race, religion, or national origin and made it a federal crime to "by force or by threat of force, injure, intimidate, or interfere with anyone … by reason of their race, color, religion, or national origin, handicap or familial status." The Act was signed into law during the King assassination riots by President Lyndon B. Johnson, who had previously signed the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act into law.
Jonesboro, Louisiana
During the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, whites violently resisted African-American efforts to gain their constitutional rights as citizens, even after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Ku Klux Klan, which was active in the area, conducted what was called a "reign of terror" in 1964, including harassment of activists, "the burning of crosses on the lawns of African-American voters," murder, and destroying five black churches by fire, as well as their Masonic hall, and a Baptist center.
Jimmy Quillen
Quillen voted twice against the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 () is a landmark civil rights and US labor law in the United States that outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. It ended unequal application of voter registration requirements and racial segregation in schools, at the workplace and by facilities that served the general public (known as "public accommodations").
History of Louisiana
The disfranchisement of African Americans did not end until their leadership and activism throughout the South during the Civil Rights Movement gained national attention and Congressional action. This led to securing passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965, with President Lyndon Johnson's leadership as well. By 1968 almost 59% of eligible-age African Americans had registered to vote in Louisiana. Contemporary rates for African-American voter registration and turnout in the state are above 70%, demonstrating the value they give it, a higher rate of participation than for African-American voters outside the South.
Civil Rights Act of 1960
The bill, H.R. 8601, began in the House of Representatives under jurisdiction of the House Judiciary Committee. The chairman of the committee, Congressman Emanuel Celler of New York, was known to be a firm supporter of the civil rights movement. The bill was easily approved by the Judiciary Committee, but the Rules Committee attacked the Judiciary Committee to prevent the bill coming to the floor of the House of Representatives. The bill was introduced to the House on March 10, 1960.
McComb, Mississippi
In 1964, civil rights activists began the Mississippi Project and what would be called Freedom Summer, with teams returning to southwest Mississippi. They sang, "We Shall Never Turn Back." SNCC members of the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) returned to McComb in mid-July 1964 to work on voter registration. From late August 1964 through September, after passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, McComb was the setting for eleven bombings directed against African Americans. Malcolm Boyd took part of COFO's Freedom House as a member of a clerical delegation to assist African-American voter registration. The following summer, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and African Americans began to be able to register and vote again in the South. In Mississippi, most blacks had been disenfranchised since 1890.
History of Alabama
Before his November, 1963 assassination, President John F. Kennedy had supported civil rights legislation. In 1964 President Lyndon Johnson helped secure its passage and signed the Civil Rights Act. The Selma to Montgomery marches in 1965 attracted national and international press and TV coverage. The nation was horrified to see peaceful protesters beaten as they entered the county. That year, Johnson helped achieve passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act to gain federal oversight and enforcement to ensure the ability of all citizens to vote.
United States Commission on Civil Rights
A revolution in public opinion occurred during the late 1950s and early 1960s on issues of civil rights. The activities and reports of the Commission on Civil Rights contributed to that change. In 1956, the year before the 1957 Act, less than half of white Americans agreed with the statement, "White students and Negro students should go to the same schools." By 1963, the year before the 1964 Act, that figure had jumped to 62%. In 1956, a healthy majority of white Americans—60%—opposed "separate sections for Negroes on streetcars and buses." By 1963, the number had grown to 79% opposed—an overwhelming majority. Even in the South, minds were being changed. In 1956, 27% of Southern whites opposed separate sections on public transportation for blacks and whites. By 1963, the number had become a majority of 52%.
Racial steering
The United States congress passed a series of Acts aimed at combating segregation. The first such act, The Civil Rights Act of 1866, states in subsections 1981, 1981a, and 1982 that all persons born in the United States are citizens regardless of their race, color, or previous condition and as citizens they could make and enforce contracts, sue and be sued, give evidence in court, and inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real estate and personal property. Although this act was passed, it was never enforced on the local, state or national level. A second act, The Civil Rights Act of 1964, through Title VI outlawed segregation in public schools and public places. It also made it illegal to have segregation of the races in schools, housing, or hiring. Like the first act, powers given to enforce it were weak in the beginning, but were later supplemented. A third act, the Civil Rights Act of 1968, subsection 3604, expanded on the Civil Rights Act of 1866. It prohibited discrimination concerning the sale, rental, and financing of housing based on race, religion, national origin, and sex. This section is also referred to as the Fair Housing Act. This act is enforced at the national level by the Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity at the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development.