The Civil Rights Act 50 Years On.

 

President Johnson signing the Civil Rights Act, 1964

Fifty years ago, Lyndon Johnson showed what a politically skilled President can achieve when facing a hostile Congress. Despite strong Republican and Democratic opposition in both the House and Senate, LBJ, ably assisted by Vice President Hubert Humphrey, brought some long overdue black civil rights laws into existence. The major provisions of the Civil Rights Act, 1964 are listed:

• The Act outlawed discrimination in hotels, motels, restaurants, theaters, and all other public accommodations; however, it exempted private clubs without defining "private," thereby allowing a loophole.

• The Act permitted Justice Department to bring lawsuits to secure desegregation of stated public facilities.

• The Act encouraged the desegregation of public schools and authorized the U. S. Attorney General to file suits to force desegregation. Despite the 1954 Supreme Court ruling in Brown v Board of Education, Topeka, many public schools in the South remained segregated.

• The Act authorized but did not require withdrawal of federal funds from programs which practiced discrimination.

•  Discrimination in employment in any business exceeding twenty five people was outlawed and an Equal Employment Opportunities Commission was created to review complaints, although it lacked meaningful enforcement powers.

•  The Act barred unequal application of voter registration requirements, but did not abolish literacy tests, sometimes used to disqualify African Americans and poor white voters. LBJ knew that any stronger legislation at that time would be a step too far for Congress. However, following his landslide victory in November, 1964, LBJ pressed forward with the Voting Rights Act, 1965.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 demonstrated the constraints on the president of the United States in the area of domestic policy. Both President Kennedy and President Johnson had to deal with severe opposition to civil rights legislation in Congress, especially within their own Democratic Party. The so-called Southern Democrats railed against weakening of racial discrimination in the South and the defeat of Jim Crow. But the passage of the Act also illustrated the effective powers the president had at his disposal once he committed himself to a particular course of action. Both Kennedy's and Johnson's use of television to dramatize the nature of the black civil rights crisis to the American people was outstanding. Those members of Congress opposed to the Act were effectively put in the stocks of public opinion. 

Fifty years on, has the 1964 Act remade US politics? Let’s look at the history. In June, 1964, the “Freedom Summer,” a black church near Philadelphia, Mississippi, was burned to the ground. Three civil rights activists, Freedom Riders, investigated while challenging civil rights abuses. The book and movie, Mississippi Burning, tells the story of their murders. Suffice it to say that not until 2005 was Edgar Killen, a KKK member, convicted of the murder of the three activists.

LBJ showed a lot of foresight shortly after the passing of the 1964 Act when he told White House Press Secretary Bill Moyers, “we just delivered the South to the Republicans for a long time.” In 1980, Ronald Reagan, then the Republican candidate for the presidency, came to Mississippi. He spoke at a County Fair, not far from where the murders had taken place but said not one word about the deaths or civil rights. Instead, he spoke about state’s rights, music to the ears of Confederate apologists. For the black community, Reagan’s message was hardly subtle. It seemed to favour the right of the state to continue black oppression.

Reagan was the beneficiary of Richard Nixon’s “Southern strategy,” a policy to reach out to Southern voters by appealing to their culturally conservative instincts and segregationist desires. From 1968, the Republicans won a majority of Southern states, save in 1976 to Jimmy Carter, a Georgian.

But it is clear that the politics of equality and integration, the bedrock of the civil rights movement, have triumphed over the politics of oppression and contempt. The days when whites were in the majority everywhere throughout the United States are over. Whilst the African American population has remained static, the rise of the Latinos and the votes they bring are highly influential. Nowhere is the influence of racial minority more apparent than in the White House. For the past six years, President Obama has risen above racial slurs and prejudice to preside for all US citizens. If evidence is needed to support this claim, one need only consider the Affordable Care Act, bringing some 40 million Americans into the health insurance net. The Act does not discriminate.

Would Mr Obama have been elected? Would statutes have passed through Congress that do not discriminate against race? Would the anti-racial movements have survived without the 1964 Act? History will judge but laws to promote equality have made America a better place to live for numerous American families, black and white.