The Civil Rights Act of 1964

Lola Akinsola

How a Bill Gets Passed

The Civil Rights Bill was proposed to congress June 11th, 1963 by President John F. Kennedy. Even

after his assassination in November, 1963, the bill was still being debated and later, the new

president Lyndon Johnson was stuck with the bill.

• Worked as an elementary school teacher for Mexican American children in 1928.

• Made a huge effort to decrease black unemployment to 50% by 1932.

• African Americans found him unusually helpful when he stayed at black colleges.

• When Johnson became congressman, he started using minorities to show his “appreciation” only to win black votes.

Interesting Things About Lyndon Johnson

In the House of Representatives, the members who opposed the bill tried to keep it hidden in the House Rules Committee once it was introduced to them. In the Senate, Senators who opposed the bill tried to talk the bill down to death in a filibuster once it was introduced to them also. In other words, they talked on and on about why they oppose the bill until people gave up and went along with it.

March on Washington

On August 28th, 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. led the march on Washington, drawing even more attention to the civil rights bill and making it harder to deny or delay the bill any further.

Around the time of the march, the bill was voted for and passed down to the final debate: the conference between both the Senate and the House of Representatives.

Though the march on Washington along with other civil rights movement events caught lots of attention from the government, it still wasn’t enough for the government to pass the bill on to the President quickly. It wasn’t until June 15th, 1964 that Richard B. Russel, the man who organized 18 Southern Democratic senators into filibustering this bill, privately told Mike Mansfield and Hubert Humphrey, the two leading supporters of the Civil rights Act, that he would end the filibuster that was preventing them from passing the bill on to the President…

While this was happening, Senator of Minnesota Hubert Humphrey, the support of President Johnson, and the efforts of Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen of Illinois, were convincing Republicans to support the bill to obtain more votes.

With both the end of the filibuster and support from the Republicans, the votes came out to be 73 votes to 27, passing the bill onto the president to sign. On July 2nd, 1964, President Lyndon B, Johnson signed the Civil Rights Bill and passed it as a law.

This couldn’t have happened without all the civil rights activists and supporters who marched, walked, sat, protested, been sprayed with water hoses, chased by K-9 dogs, pretty much anything they could to at least get their point across. Without these people, we would be far behind where we are today. The country was run by people who didn’t care for civil rights anyways so one would have to step up and say something in order for people of all races to have the same rights and privileges.

Today

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was only supposed to completely shut down segregation in businesses such as theaters, restaurants, and hotels. It banned discriminatory practices in employment and ended segregation in public places such as swimming pools, libraries, and public schools. Now, we have an African American president, another African American trying to run for president, Hispanic leaders, Asian leaders, you name it, we got it. The Civil Rights bill did more than just those things listed above. It changed the way our country operates and includes everyone in our country’s decisions no matter the skin color, gender, height, favorite color, whatever.

Reflection on the Creation of a Bill/Law

The creation of a bill has to be one of the most difficult tasks to ever do. Reason being because there are millions of people who live in our country and from these millions of people we have millions of opinions, which may all totally disagree with each other, or even worse, disagree with whoever thought of the bill. Bills have to be sensible. There has to be something that is missing in our country that is obtainable yet so unique it puts us at the top in the world. That’s what all countries try to do: be the best. The biggest challenge of the creative process is definitely thinking about what is wrong with our country. There is definitely a lot, however there is very little we can do at this point in time that will not cause a huge controversy. No one wants to be the top news story on CNN about how dumb their plan was.

Lovely Citations• "Congress and the Civil Rights Act of 1964." National Archives and Records

Administration. Web. 04 Nov. 2011. <http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/treasures_of_congress/text/page24_text.html>.

• "1964 Civil Rights Act." Spartacus Educational. Web. 04 Nov. 2011. <http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAcivil64.htm>.

• "Lyndon Johnson." History Learning Site. Web. 04 Nov. 2011. <http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/Lyndon_Baines_Johnson.htm>.

• "Lyndon B. Johnson." Web. <http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/history/johnson/lbj-phone.bmp>.

• "Confetti." TopLiners. Web. 4 Nov. 2011. <http://topliners.eloqua.com/servlet/JiveServlet/showImage/2-3014-1318/confetti.jpg>.

• Web. <http://help.lexisnexis.com/tabula-rasa/congressional/US/en_US/images/bill2law.gif>.

• Web. <http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/awhhtml/awlaw3/civil.html>.