Today in History 2 July 1964 President Johnson signs Civil Rights Act
On this day in 1964, U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signs into law the historic Civil Rights Act in a nationally televised ceremony at the White House.
Originally proposed in 1963 by former President John F. Kennedy, a Democrat, the bill ended segregation in public places and made employment discrimination illegal.
The House passed the bill after 70 days of public hearings and testimony in a 290-130 vote. The bill received 152 "yea" votes from Democrats, or 60 percent of their party, and 138 votes from Republicans, or 78 percent of their party.
These percentages include four vote categories-"yea," "nay," "present," and "not voting."
In the Senate, the bill faced strong and organized opposition from Southern Democrats. Influential senators like Richard Russell, Strom Thurmond (who would soon switch to the Republican Party), Robert Byrd, William Fulbright, and Sam Ervin joined together to launch a filibuster that lasted for 57 days.
Russell, a Democrat from Georgia, at one point argued that the bill would lead to the destruction of the South's "two different social orders" and result in the "amalgamation and mongrelization of our people."
After some changes were made to the bill and the filibuster ended, it passed the Senate with a 73-27 vote. About 82 percent of Republicans in the Senate voted for the bill, as did 69 percent of Democrats. The amended Senate bill was then sent back to the House where it passed with 76 percent support from Republicans and 60 percent support from Democrats.
A number of powerful Democrats, such as President Lyndon B. Johnson and Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield, played important roles in getting the legislation passed.
Prior to this, Congress had passed the Civil Rights Act of 1957, the first major civil rights legislation to be enacted in decades, which sought to protect the voting rights of black Americans. The bill passed the House in a 286-126 vote. Only 51 percent of Democrats voted in favor of the bill, or 119 of their 235 members, compared to 84 percent of Republicans, or 167 of their 199 members.
The bill was then brought to the Senate where Thurmond, an ardent foe of integration, filibustered the vote for a total of 24 hours and 18 minutes in protest-the longest individual filibuster in history. Thurmond once said in a speech that "there's not enough troops in the army to force the southern people to break down segregation and admit the Negro race into our theaters, into our swimming pools, into our homes and into our churches."
After the filibuster ended and a number of changes had been made, the bill passed in a 72-18 vote. The bill received 43 of 46 Republican votes, or 93 percent, and 29 of 49 Democratic votes, or 59 percent.
In the landmark 1954 case Brown v. Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation in schools was unconstitutional. The 10 years that followed saw great strides for the African American civil rights movement, as non-violent demonstrations won thousands of supporters to the cause.
Memorable landmarks in the struggle included the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955-sparked by the refusal of Alabama resident Rosa Parks to give up her seat on a city bus to a white woman-and the "I Have a Dream" speech by Martin Luther King Jr. at a rally of hundreds of thousands in Washington, D.C., in 1963.
As the strength of the civil rights movement grew, John F. Kennedy made passage of a new civil rights bill one of the platforms of his successful 1960 presidential campaign. As Kennedy's vice president, Johnson served as chairman of the President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunities. After Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963, Johnson vowed to carry out his proposals for civil rights reform.
The Civil Rights Act fought tough opposition in the House and a lengthy, heated debate in the Senate before being approved in July 1964. For the signing of the historic legislation, Johnson invited hundreds of guests to a televised ceremony in the White House's East Room.
After using more than 75 pens to sign the bill, he gave them away as mementoes of the historic occasion, in accordance with tradition. One of the first pens went to King, leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), who called it one of his most cherished possessions. Johnson gave two more to Senators Hubert Humphrey and Everett McKinley Dirksen, the Democratic and Republican managers of the bill in the Senate.
The most sweeping civil rights legislation passed by Congress since the post-Civil War Reconstruction era, the Civil Rights Act prohibited racial discrimination in employment and education and outlawed racial segregation in public places such as schools, buses, parks and swimming pools.
In addition, the bill laid important groundwork for a number of other pieces of legislation-including the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which set strict rules for protecting the right of African Americans to vote-that have since been used to enforce equal rights for women as well as all minorities.