Today's News, Tomorrow's Lesson - Civil Rights Act Anniversary - June 27, 2014

by Jinnie Spiegler, Anti-Defamation League

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson fifty years ago on July 2, 1964. The Act banned discrimination in public facilities, including private companies offering public services, like lunch counters, hotels and theaters. It also provided for the integration of schools and other public facilities and made employment discrimination illegal based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin. The document was the most sweeping civil rights legislation since Reconstruction.

Despite the Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 that school segregation was unconstitutional, in the 1960s, in many communities in the United States, African-American and white people were still segregated in schools, public transportation and restaurants. Discrimination prevented many African Americans from receiving equal consideration for employment and education. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 sought to legally prohibit and punish these injustices. And while many leaders at that time reminded the public that laws alone cannot shape “the hearts and minds” of people, the power of government through laws is a critical step to bring about change.

This road to passing the Civil Rights Act was a bumpy one. For decades after Reconstruction, Congress did not pass a single civil rights act. With protests throughout the south including one in Birmingham where police tried to suppress nonviolent demonstrators with dogs and fire hoses, President John F. Kennedy decided to act. In June 1963, he proposed the most far reaching civil rights legislation to date, saying the U.S. “will not be fully free until all of its citizens are free.” Following Kennedy’s assassination in November 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. continued to press for the bill as did newly inaugurated President Lyndon B. Johnson.

The House approved the bill with bipartisan support but when it moved to the Senate, a seventy-five day filibuster ensued. Finally, the Senate voted 73-27 in favor of the bill and President Johnson signed the bill into law on July 2, 1985. Upon signing it, he said, “Americans of every race and color have died in battle to protect our freedom. Americans of every race and color have worked to build a nation of widening opportunities. Now our generation of Americans has been called on to continue the unending search for justice within our own borders. We believe that all men are created equal. Yet many are denied equal treatment.”

The 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act provides an opportunity to teach students about the history of discrimination and racism in the United States, the struggle for civil rights, the Civil Rights Act, the progress we have made as well as the work that remains to be done.