Civil Rights Act 1964
When the Government Stood Up For Civil Rights
"All my life I've been
sick and tired, and now I'm just sick and tired of
being sick and tired. No one
can honestly say Negroes are satisfied. We've
only been patient, but how much
more patience can we have?" Mrs. Hamer said
these words in 1964, a month
and a day before the historic Civil Rights Act
of 1964 would be signed into law
by President Lyndon B. Johnson. She speaks
for the mood of a race, a race that
for centuries has built the nation of
America, literally, with blood, sweat, and
passive acceptance. She speaks for
black Americans who have been second class
citizens in their own home too
long. She speaks for the race that would be
patient no longer that would be
accepting no more. Mrs. Hamer speaks for the
African Americans who stood
up in the 1950's and refused to sit down. They were
the people who led the
greatest movement in modern American history - the civil
rights movement. It
was a movement that would be more than a fragment of
history, it was a
movement that would become a measure of our lives (Shipler
12). When
Martin Luther King Jr. stirred up the conscience of a nation, he gave
voice
to a long lain dormant morality in America, a voice that the government
could
no longer ignore. The government finally answered on July 2nd with
the
Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is
historically
significant because it stands as a defining piece of civil
rights legislation,
being the first time the national government had declared
equality for blacks.
The civil rights movement was a campaign led by a
number of organizations,
supported by many individuals, to end discrimination
and achieve equality for
American Blacks (Mooney 776). The forefront of
the struggle came during the
1950's and the 1960's when the feeling of
oppression intensified and efforts
increased to gain access to public
accommodations, increased voting rights, and
better educational opportunities
(Mooney). Civil rights in America began with
the adoption of the 13th, 14th,
and 15th amendments to the Constitution, which
ended slavery and freed blacks
in theory. The Civil Rights Acts of 1866 and 1875
were passed, guaranteeing
the rights of blacks in the courts and access to
public accommodation. These
were, however, declared unconstitutional by the
Supreme Court, who
decided that the fourteenth did not protect blacks from
violation of civil
rights, by individuals. This decision allowed white Southern
conservative
leadership to make laws and policies regarding blacks that
eluded
constitutional guarantees. In the face of this blatant discrimination
black
Americans started to gather and form new organizations to further,
and in many
cases create civil rights for themselves. Civil rights leadership
was assumed by
organizations such as the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored
people (NAACP), and the National Urban League (NUL).
The NAACP was formally
organized in 1910, and for half a century was the
foremost civil rights agency,
bringing mass amounts of litigation to the
courts. In its commitment to the
ideals of democracy the NAACP pursued
equality for all in the eyes of the
government. Around the middle of the
century gains were being made in small
places, with a few minor changes in
state laws. Yet blacks were still for all
conventional purposes second class
citizens (Mooney 776). World War II and its
homecoming black veterans brought
back even more unrest than before. After
fighting the Germans and witnessing
Hitler's racial holocaust blacks realized
the inequality at home even more.
The problem was helped by the migration of
black soldiers out West to take
advantage of wartime prosperity. The civil
rights issue was now gaining a
national face. Then the Supreme Court handed down
its devastating decision in
Plessey vs. Ferguson (1896), that segregation is
constitutional as long as
facilities are "separate but equal." In the
words of the one dissenting
justice, "this is the worst decision the court
has ever handed down." The
education provided to blacks proved to be,
"manifestly unequal by every
yardstick," and blacks, impeded in
education, proved to summer in almost
every other area as a result. Meanwhile
the government remained silent on
this issue, and other issues of discrimination
in employment and voting
restrictions (Mooney 777). The wall would eventually
have to come down, and
Chief Justice Warren and the legendary Warren court
personally brought around
its destruction. In 1954 the Supreme Court reversed
the decision of Plessey
vs. Ferguson that had stood for almost forty-two years,
in the historic case
of Brown vs. Board of Education. The court ruled that
facilities were
blatantly unequal and such separation was unconstitutional, and
furthermore
was actually detrimental to both black and white students. The court
called
for desegregation of schools with "all deliberate speed." The
decision was
met with resistance from the South, who formed their,
"desegregation never
campaigns." A group at odds with the Warren court
and their radical
judgements, the Southern contingent protested, "They put
the Negroes in
school and now they've driven God out" Slowly, with much
violence and the use
of federal marshals, and on occasion federal troops,
segregation was
achieved. The South had no choice, Congress had finally entered
the scene
with the new Civil Rights Act of 1964, which had delivered a mandate
-
desegregate the school system or lose all federal funding. The Civil Rights
Act
of 1964 was the first strong piece of civil rights legislation in almost
ninety
years. President John F. Kennedy had been elected and called on
Congress to
bring forth this new legislation, yet by the time of his
assignation on November
22nd, 1963, nothing had materialized. Yet Lyndon
B. Johnson, Kennedy's
successor, has stepped in to keeps the legislative
wheels turning. The bill was
met with concrete resistance in the Senate, with
a Southern group debating
endlessly in an attempt to kill the bill, but the
pressure of an outraged nation
and an intent administration finally broke the
stalemate. Senator Joseph S.
Clark speaking of the Senate and its efforts
to kill the bill said,
"Heedless of its mail, allergic to public opinion
polls, apparently unaware
of the grave moral issue involved, a minority of
this body, day after day, under
archaic rules and procedures existing in no
other legislative body in the
civilized world, prevents a majority of this
body to act from acting on this
civil rights bill." The Civil Rights Act had
finally been enacted. The
government had at last sided with the movement
(Mooney 778). The Civil Rights
Act of 1964 was signed and passed into law
by President Lyndon B. Johnson on
July 2nd 1994, after one of the longest
running debates in Senate history. It
was an idea that started with President
Kennedy, and after his assassination the
civil rights groups had to face the
question of whether legislative strategies
would be the same under the new
President, but President Johnson saw them
through (Watters 119). The
comprehensive legislation was the most important law
passed in civil rights
since the Reconstruction. It was groundbreaking
legislation that aimed to end
all forms of discrimination based on race, color,
gender, religion or
national origin. Title I removes registration requirements
and procedural
bias, to guarantee equal voting rights. Title II, the main leap
forward for
civil rights, banns discrimination in places of public accommodation
involved
in interstate commerce, which according to Martin Luther King Jr.,
"is the
most humiliating thing a Negro faces" (Watters 118). Title IV
calls for the
desegregation of schools - putting into law the Supreme Court
decision of
Brown vs. Board of Education. Title V expands the duties of the
Civil
Rights Commission, set up by President Truman after the shame of
the
treatment of black Military personnel during World War II (Ginsberg 131).
Title
VII establishes a government agency, the Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission
(EEOC), to enforce the provisions that prohibits
discrimination by employers
dealing with the federal government or interstate
commerce (Ash 797). The Act,
despite its many strengths was met with much
opposition from many different
groups. Immediately after its passage the act
was contested all the way to the
Supreme Court in the case of Heart of
Atlanta Motel vs. United States (Ginsberg
A55). The Heart of Atlanta
Motel was a whites only establishment, and the owner
argued that his property
rights allowed him to choose the people that stayed in
his accommodations.
The Supreme Court disagreed in a unanimous ruling that his
business was based
on interstate commerce and to discriminate would hinder part
of the national
economic system. Other opposition included a backlash of riots
among working
class blacks, who felt the bill insulted them. White groups for
segregation
responded with demonstrations and and increased support of
pro-segregation
candidates in Congress. Groups rushed to point out the
deficiencies in the
Act. Title VII, dealing with discrimination in employment,
had the problem
that the complaining party had to show that deliberate
discrimination was the
cause of failure to get a job, or position (Ash 801).
Women's groups
complained that there was too much emphasis on race
discrimination and that
there was nothing being done to prevent discrimination
based on gender
(Ginsburg 143). Black civil Rights leaders such as Martin Luther
King Jr.
and John Lewis doubted the effectiveness of the Act. Holding little
faith
King said, "If it is rigidly enforced it will help a lot, but if it
is
compromised (and this is a danger) public accommodations will again be
the
main Southern target" (Watters 118). The opposition subsided in time
and
now it is easy to forget the struggles that made this act so important.
The
Civil Rights Act of 1964 was the concrete action the movement needed
to progress
on to other key legislation. It was not miracle legislation, and
it did not
solve all the problems overnight. But after all is said and done,
three
centuries of discrimination have created problems that one act of
legislation
can solve but a minor part of. This Act was the first step, it
allowed the
Warren court the opportunity to take discrimination farther
then it had ever
been taken before in the courts, and to strike it down with
regulations that
would ensure that it would never rise again. It made way in
Congress for the
comprehensive voting act that was to follow. It gave heart
to the fighters, that
the government was at a last seeing the new way, the
right way. Revolutionary
might be a strong term for the act, an
accomplishment that was born in the
government system, but it became a
powerful tool for liberation (Shipler 12). A
lot of tension can be directed
at the federal government, and it is responsible
for a lot of civil rights
grievances, but in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 relief
came as the government
took responsibility for undoing some of the harm
(Watters118). The historical
significance on the act can never be denied, just
as its effects on race
relations in America can never be underestimated. It was
an act whose impacts
swept beyond the movement, but increased the civil rights
of all Americans.
Discrimination is a problem of ethics. Discrimination is
unethical. The
government has an ethical obligation to make and change laws to
ensure that
it does not discriminate. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is perhaps
the best
example there is of the American government fulfilling its ethical
obligation
(Ash 803). For in the words of Thurgood Marshall, the great civil
rights
lawyer, and later first black man to serve on the Supreme Court,
"Far too
long, the doors have been shut to the Negro" (Ginsberg 146).
The Civil
Rights Act of 1964 opened them.
Bibliography
Ash, Philip.
"The
Implications of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 For Psychological
Assessment in
Industry." American-Psychologist 6 (1966): 797-803.
Ginsberg, Benjamin, and
Theodore J. Lowi, eds. American
Government-Freedom and Power. New York: W.W.
Norton, 1998. Mooney, Chase
C. "Civil Rights Movement." Encyclopedia
Americana. 1996 ed. Shipler,
David K. "The Marshall Plan." The New
York Times Book Review 1 June 1998:
12-13 Watters, Pat. "The Spring
Offensive." The Nation 3 February 1964:
117-120