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.