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. 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. 


Bibliography


Ash, Philip. "The
Implications of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 For Psychological Assessment in
Industry." American-Psychologist 6 (1966): 797-803. Ginsberg, Benjamin, and
Theodore J. Lowi, eds. American Government-Freedom and Power. New York: W.W.
Norton, 1998. Mooney, Chase C. "Civil Rights Movement." Encyclopedia
Americana. 1996 ed. Shipler, David K. "The Marshall Plan." The New
York Times Book Review 1 June 1998: 12-13 Watters, Pat. "The Spring
Offensive." The Nation 3 February 1964: 117-120