Civil Rights Act Of 1964 Essay, Research Paper
Cival 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 laindormant 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.