Civic Register
| 7.2.17

On This Date: The Civil Rights Act of 1964 Became Law

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On this date, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (CRA) into law, which officially outlawed discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. As the most significant civil rights legislative reform since Reconstruction, the CRA helped to actively reverse racial segregation in the South. It prohibited “Jim Crow” segregation policies that relegated African-Americans to separate schools, restaurants, restrooms, and even drinking fountains through a comprehensive set of anti-discrimination reforms.

What did it do?

The CRA banned segregation in public places (including public schools, businesses, theaters, restaurants, swimming pools, libraries and hotels), prevented discrimination in employment, and perhaps most notably, enforced the right to vote for African-Americans. Although the CRA certainly didn’t end all forms of discrimination, it eliminated a host of institutional barriers to integration for African-Americans and sparked a nationwide conversation on inequality in the U.S.

Why was it needed?

The Civil Rights Act was critical in breaking a cycle of legal complacency around discrimination. Following the Civil War, the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution outlawed slavery, granted legal equal protection, guaranteed citizenship, and even provided the right to vote for African-Americans, but that didn’t change the reality experienced by blacks in the South.

Under Jim Crow laws that encouraged the segregation of public facilities, individual states continued to strip minorities of their rights. The Supreme Court’s 1896 ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson explicitly upheld these practices, holding that states’ “separate but equal” segregation policies were in fact constitutional. As a result, the ruling helped legalize segregation well into the 20th century. These rulings, however, generated an immense amount of debate about civil rights.

In 1954, the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case challenged the philosophy of “separate but equal” in terms of public education. Ruling that separate educational facilities were “inherently unequal” and in violation of the 14th Amendment, the Court’s decision started a debate that led to federal action to protect civil rights.

Every year from 1945-1957, Congress attempted, unsuccessfully, to pass a civil rights bill. Although it passed civil rights bills in both 1957 and 1960, the reforms these offered were relatively limited. Following the 1957 act, however, the civil rights movement truly began to take hold. Prominent civil rights leaders in the 1950’s and early 1960’s launched a series of sit-ins, boycotts, Freedom Rides, and the creation of civil rights organizations, all culminating in the critical year of 1963. Televised conflicts between peaceful protesters and authorities; the Birmingham Campaign, a movement organized by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to protest segregation; the March on Washington, which featured Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech; and several murders of African-Americans all heightened the focus on civil rights that year.

Amid a political climate rife with civil rights discourse, President John F. Kennedy proposed the Civil Rights Act, submitted the bill to Congress, and began a host of other civil rights reforms in the meantime. The president met with businessmen, religious leaders, labor officials, and groups such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and cautioned African-American leaders against the use of violence as a means of protest, arguing that it might alienate potential supporters.

After Kennedy’s assassination in November of 1963, Dr. King and newly sworn in President Lyndon B. Johnson continued to advocate for Kennedy’s civil rights bill. Initially, the House of Representatives debated the bill for nine days and rejected nearly 100 amendments that were intended to weaken it. Following 60 days of public hearings, appearances by almost 300 witnesses, and nearly 6,000 pages of published testimony, the bill passed in the House by a vote of 290 to 130 on February 10th, 1964.

In the Senate, however, members raised several concerns over the bill’s extension of federal powers. Seen as having the potential to upset constituents who might retaliate against them at the ballot box, senators began the longest filibuster in American history in an attempt to block the bill, creating a deadlock that lasted 57 days.

Thanks to persistence by Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen, leadership from Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota, and the critical support of President Johnson, after over 80 days of debate, the Senate finally passed its own version of the bill. The House then moved to endorse the Senate bill, and on July 2nd, 1964, President Johnson, with King and several other civil rights activists in attendance, signed the bill into law. Thus, after years of anti-segregation protests, discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, color or national origin was officially prohibited in the U.S.

Implications

The immediate effects of the 1964 Civil Rights Act were significant. In Mississippi, for example, black voter registration in eligible populations skyrocketed from below 7 percent in 1965 to over 70 percent in 1967. The bill itself served as a stepping stone for a wealth of addition civil rights reforms; the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Fair Housing Act of 1968, and Age Discrimination in Employment Act in 1967 were just a few of the policies that piggybacked on the CRA’s success.

Even today, the achievements of the Civil Rights Act continue to manifest. The 1964 CRA was key in creating an anti-discriminatory culture that led to rules preventing discrimination in the workplace and beyond. The CRA has also played a vital role in broadening the idea of inclusion beyond just race; today, discussions of gender equality and equal rights for the disabled, gay, and immigrant communities have become just as common as those of race. Overall, the progress we’ve achieved in mitigating discrimination in these spheres is in large part due to the groundwork laid by the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

-- Meera Santhanam

(Photo Credit: White House Press Office / Public Domain)