Civil Rights Act of 1964 Imagine you are at a diner and you are forced to leave because of the color of your skin. Before 1964, black people all around the United States had to give up multiple privileges in their lives because of racial segregation. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 helped improve the equality between the whites and blacks. Many different people, riots, and protests influenced the approval of the act. Although it didn’t allow everyone to be included in all of the prerogatives, it helped lead to the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Fair Housing Act of 1968, and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. What Was the Civil Rights Act of 1964? The Civil Rights Act of 1964 covered multiple topics to shield people from being discriminated …show more content…
for their race, sex, national origin, or religion in public places or in employment. It was first introduced by President John F. Kennedy but after he was assassinated, his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, officialized it (“Civil Rights Act of 1964”). According to research, Kennedy was torn between whether or not he wanted to propose the bill. He noticed that America’s ideal society was nothing like it was in reality. He wanted to help get rid of discrimination but he was also worried that he would lose the support of the white Southern Democrats. Riots that continued to occur were the major deciding factor for him. Then, Kennedy died and Johnson had to take over. Johnson had a close relationship with the people in both political parties which helped majorly in passing the bill through Congress. He also took advantage of the citizens’ grief over Kennedy saying that the bill would help continue his legacy. The new president faced a filibuster in the Senate that lasted a total of 83 days (“The Civil Rights Act of 1964”). It took a lot of hard work to obtain enough votes to end the filibuster but Johnson was able to do it. The Senate ended up voting 73-27 in favor of the bill (“Civil Rights Act of 1964”). On July 2, 1964, the act was finally established. Influences on the Act Jackie Robinson was the first black person to play major league baseball and enter the Hall of Fame. For more than fifty years, baseball was considered an all-white sport. When Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947, he was the only African American in the league. According to Herman, “...blacks played on National or American League teams. Many people thought black athletes didn’t have the talent, drive, or smarts.” The first team that he joined was the Kansas City Monarchs for the Negro Leagues. After a scout saw his extraordinary skills, he asked Jackie to play for the Brooklyn Dodgers’ minor league team, the Royals. Hoping to move up to the major league team, Robinson accepted the offer. While on the field, his opponents would often be derogatory towards the fact that he was black. Some of the teams even cancelled the games. Jackie did his best to ignore it and ended up helping the Royals win multiple games. The Dodgers’ manager saw Jackie’s talent and asked him to join the major league team. In 1955, Robinson helped his team win their first World Series (Herman 3-90). Because of Jackie Robinson, the color barrier for baseball was broken, allowing people of all races to eventually participate in sports. Rosa parks was a very courageous black woman that is known for refusing to forfeit her seat on a bus for a white man. Laws about buses stated that the front rows were for white passengers, the back rows were for blacks, and the middle rows were for whites and blacks. Black people and white people were not permitted to sit in the same row as each other. With this rule, if a white person were to come onto the bus and their section was full, the bus driver had the ability to force everyone in the row that was black to move. After Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat, she was arrested. When she was bailed out, Edgar Nixon from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People recommended for Rosa to file a lawsuit against the bus company. She wanted the whole black population of Montgomery to support her, not just her lawyer. On the day of her trial, Monday, December 5, 1955, a bus boycott started. Lasting more than a year, the boycott was very successful (McDonough 46-76). The bus company realized that a lot of their income came from black passengers, forcing them to change the rules of bus segregation. The Birmingham Church Bombing was one of the most influential events on the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Birmingham was a very highly segregated city. Civil Rights organizers often met at the church to hold meetings which caused many bomb threats to occur. On September 15, 1963, a bomb exploded for the third time in eleven days. Multiple people were injured and four young girls died. Their names were Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, and Denise McNair (“Birmingham Church Bombing”). After their deaths, multiple riots broke out and caused about 15 more people to be killed. This resulted in President John F. Kennedy saying, “‘If these cruel and tragic events can only awaken that city and state - if they can only awaken this entire nation to a realization of the folly of racial injustice and hatred and violence, then it is not too late for all concerned to unite in steps toward peaceful progress before more lives are lost’” (“1963 Birmingham Church Bombing Fast Facts”). This helped people realize the problems that occurred from the large amount of discrimination. The increased support to end it helped lead to the authorization of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The increased support to end it helped lead to the authorization of the Civil Rights Act of
1964.
Groups of people soon received new rights. Congress passed the Civil Rights Act. It gave black Americans full citizenship and guaranteed them equal treatment. Also, it passed the Fourteenth Amendment to make sure that the Supreme Court couldn’t declare the Civil Rights Act unconstitutional. The amendment made blacks citizens of the United States and the states in which they lived. Also, states were forbidden to deprive blacks of life, liberty, or property without due process. Additionally, blacks could not be discriminated by the law. If a state would deprive blacks of their rights as citizens, it’s number of congressional representatives would be reduced. The Civil Rights Act as well as the Fourteenth Amendment affected both the North and the South.
During this era, LBJ and the Civil Rights Bill was the main aattraction. July 2, 1964, President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed a civil rights bill that prohibited discrimination in voting, education, employment, and other areas of the American life. At this point, the American life will be changed forever. LBJ had helped to weaken bills because he felt as if it was the states job and not the goverment, but why did he change his mind? Was polictics the reason LBJ signed the Civil Rights Bill of 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.
For 75 years following reconstruction the United States made little advancement towards racial equality. Many parts of the nation enacted Jim Crowe laws making separation of the races not just a matter of practice but a matter of law. The laws were implemented with the explicit purpose of keeping black American’s from being able to enjoy the rights and freedoms their white counterparts took for granted. Despite the efforts of so many nameless forgotten heroes, the fate of African Americans seemed to be in the hands of a racist society bent on keeping them down; however that all began to change following World War II. Thousands of African American men returned from Europe with a renewed purpose and determined to break the proverbial chains segregation had keep them in since the end of the American Civil War. With a piece of Civil Rights legislation in 1957, the federal government took its first step towards breaking the bonds that had held too many citizens down for far too long. The Civil Rights Act of 1957 was a watered down version of the law initially proposed but what has been perceived as a small step towards correcting the mistakes of the past was actually a giant leap forward for a nation still stuck in the muck of racial division. What some historians have dismissed as an insignificant and weak act was perhaps the most important law passed during the nation’s civil rights movement, because it was the first and that cannot be underestimated.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed soon after the milestone March on Washington. In the largest march ever held in the United States, people of all races and colors gathered together to show legislature that racism would no longer be acceptable in society. Title VII, the section which deals with discrimination in the workforce is one small part of the larger piece of legislation. Title VII, of the Civil Rights Act, quickly became the most important arbiter of rights under the new law (Bennett-Alexander & Hartman, 2001). The workforce has drastically changed since the passage of the act. Women and minorities are engaged in employment now more than ever. With the passage of Title VII, the door was opened to prohibiting job discrimination and creating fairness in employment (Bennett-Alexander & Hartman, 2001). Soon after, protection against discrimination based on age and disability was provided.
...of religion, the freedom to assemble and civil rights such as the right to be free from discrimination such as gender, race, religion, and sexual orientation. Throughout history, African Americans have endured discrimination, segregation, and racism and have progressively gained rights and freedoms by pushing civil rights movement across America. This paper addressed several African American racial events that took place in our nation’s history. These events were pivotal and ultimately led to the establishment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. The Civil Rights Act paved the way for future legislation that was not limited to African American civil rights and is considered a landmark piece of legislation that ending racism, segregation and discrimination throughout the United States.
The Civil Rights Era became a time in American history when people began to reach for racial equality. The main aim of the movement had been to end racial segregation, exploitation, and violence toward minorities in the United States. Prior to the legislation that Congress passed; minorities faced much discrimination in all aspects of their lives. Lynchings and hanging...
The United States changed as a nation because of the Civil Rights Movement. Especially, the United States notched up as a more perfect union. The Civil Rights Movement secured voting rights for African-Americans and called for the ending racial segregation, discrimination and segregation. After years of struggle and upheaval, it resulted in the enactment of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, under the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson. The purpose of the act was to protect African-Americans’ voting rights and overcome legal barriers that prevented them from exercising their rights to vote. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was a historic triumph as it helped the nation acknowledge the Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which granted equal voting rights to all but which goal remained unfulfilled for the next several decades. Therefore, The Voting Rights Act of 1965 banned
Racial unrest by the summer of 1963 was at its height since the Civil War. President Kennedy picked up the situation at the close of the Eisenhower years at a time when tensions were rapidly increasing. By the summer of 1963, however, after a series of violent demonstrations in the South, particularly in Birmingham, Alabama, President Kennedy pushed for a very strong civil rights bill in Congress. The first of its kind since the Civil War, this bill drastically called for the end of all segregation in all public places. In the eyes of the civil rights movement leaders, this bill was long over due.
Race relations worsened after the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision to desegregate schools. In 1963, a bomb exploded in an African American church killing four girls and Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. Also in 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested for marching in Birmingham, Alabama, without a permit. Following his arrest, 8 clergymen wrote an article in a newspaper criticizing King’s cause. “Letter From Birmingham Jail” is King’s response
The bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church on September 15 was the third bombing in 11 days, after a federal court order had come down mandating the integration of Alabama’s school system (History.com). Multitudes of furious black protesters gathered at the location of the bombing in revolt. Governor George Wallace immediately sent authorities to cease the protests and two African American men were killed. The violent explosion eventually led to the Civil Rights Act being signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act in 1965
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 forbid businesses connected with interstate commerce to discriminate when choosing its employees. If these businesses did not conform to the act, they would lose funds that were granted to them from the government. Another act that was passed to secure the equality of blacks was the Voting Rights Act of 1965. This act, which was readopted and modified in 1970, 1975, and 1982, contained a plan to eliminate devices for voting discrimination and gave the Department of Justice more power in enforcing equal rights. In another attempt for equal rights, the Equal Employment ...
Many people remember Lyndon B. Johnson as the 36th president of the United States and because of his famous 1964 civil rights act that he signed. Many people believe different things about his reasoning toward it, people speculate that he did it for political reasons while, others think it was for principle reasons, but which one is it? I personally believe that he did it for principle reasons for three reasons, they are because he had helped kids in Texas who were discriminated a lot, he was no longer tied to the south and because he was willing to give up the election for civil rights.
As an African American I have always been under the impression that the Civil Rights Act 1964 was the first of its kind, but from my readings it was not the first attempt at establishing equal rights for everyone the first of attempt Civil Rights Bill 1866 during the Civil War and years to come after toward but the first was introduced by a Senator from Illinois named Lyman Trumbull.
...or southern blacks to vote. In 1967 the Supreme Court rules interracial marriage legal. In 1968 Martin Luther King Jr. was shot dead at the age of thirty-nine. Also the civil rights act of 1968 is passed stopping discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of housing. In 1988 President Reagan’s veto was overridden by congress passing the “Civil Rights Restoration Act” expanding the reach of non-discrimination laws within private institutions receiving federal funds. In 1991 President Bush. signs the, “Civil Rights Act of 1991”, strengthening existing civil rights laws. In 2008 President Obama is elected as the first African American president. The American Civil Rights Movement has made a massive effect on our history and how our country is today. Without it things would be very different. In the end however, were all human beings regardless of our differences.