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What did the Civil Rights Act of 1964 do?

Who signed the Civil Rights Act into law?

Who had proposed the Civil Rights Act?

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Civil Rights Act, (1964), comprehensive U.S. legislation intended to end discrimination based on race, colour, religion, or national origin. It is often called the most important U.S. law on civil rights since Reconstruction (1865-77) and is a hallmark of the American civil rights movement. Title I of the act guarantees equal voting rights by removing registration requirements and procedures biased against minorities and the underprivileged. Title II prohibits segregation or discrimination in places of public accommodation involved in interstate commerce. Title VII bans discrimination by trade unions, schools, or employers involved in interstate commerce or doing business with the federal government. The latter section also applies to discrimination on the basis of sex and established a government agency, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), to enforce these provisions. In 2020 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that firing an employee for being gay, lesbian, or transgender is illegal under Title VII's prohibition of sex discrimination (Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia). The act also calls for the desegregation of public schools (Title IV), broadens the duties of the Civil Rights Commission (Title V), and assures nondiscrimination in the distribution of funds under federally assisted programs (Title VI).

The Civil Rights Act was a highly controversial issue in the United States as soon as it was proposed by Pres. John F. Kennedy in 1963. Although Kennedy was unable to secure passage of the bill in Congress, a stronger version was eventually passed with the urging of his successor, Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson, who signed the bill into law on July 2, 1964, following one of the longest debates in Senate history. White groups opposed to integration with African Americans responded to the act with a significant backlash that took the form of protests, increased support for pro-segregation candidates for public office, and some racial violence. The constitutionality of the act was immediately challenged and was upheld by the Supreme Court in the test case Heart of Atlanta Motel v. U.S. (1964). The act gave federal law enforcement agencies the power to prevent racial discrimination in employment, voting, and the use of public facilities.

American civil rights movement Events

The 50th anniversary of the act was celebrated in April 2014 with an event at the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library in Austin, Texas. Speakers included U.S. Pres. Barack Obama and former presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush. The U.S. Congress marked the anniversary by posthumously awarding the Congressional Gold Medal to civil rights leaders Martin Luther King, Jr., and Coretta Scott King.

Adam Augustyn.

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Civil Rights Act | Summary, Facts, President, & History

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Civil Rights Act, (1964), comprehensive U.S. legislation intended to end discrimination based on race, colour, religion, or national origin. It is often called the most important U.S. law on civil rights since Reconstruction (1865-77) and is a hallmark of the American civil rights movement.

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To enforce the constitutional right to vote, to confer jurisdiction upon the district courts of the United States to provide injunctive relief against discrimination in public accommodations, to authorize the Attorney General to institute suits to protect constitutional rights in public facilities and public education, to extend the Commission on Civil Rights, to prevent discrimination in federally assisted programs, to establish a Commission on Equal Employment Opportunity, and for other purposes.

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The Civil Rights Act of 1964, which ended segregation in public places and banned employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin, is considered one of the crowning legislative achievements of the civil rights movement. First proposed by President John F. Kennedy, it survived strong opposition from southern members of Congress and was then signed into law by Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon B. Johnson. In subsequent years, Congress expanded the act and passed additional civil rights legislation such as the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

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The Civil Rights Act of 1964, which ended segregation in public places and banned employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin, is considered one of the crowning legislative achievements of the civil rights movement. First proposed by President John F. Kennedy, it survived strong opposition from southern members of Congress and was then signed into law by Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon B. Johnson. In subsequent years, Congress expanded the act and passed additional civil rights legislation such as the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

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In pairs, prepare an oral presentation illustrated with a slide show, on the following people:

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In pairs, prepare an oral presentation illustrated with a slide show, on the following people:

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ANGELA DAVIS
MALCOM X
MARTIN LUTHER KING
DAVID DUKE
RON STALLWORTH
You will introduce references to the different laws seen in class.

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"It shall be unlawful for a negro and white person to play together or in company with each other at any game of pool or billiards." This selection is an example of a Jim Crow law that was effective in the state of Alabama from the late 19th century to the early 20th century.

Jim Crow was the name of a minstrel routine beginning in 1828 by Thomas Dartmouth ("Daddy") Rice. The name became a derogatory term for African Americans and a name for any state laws that established different rules for blacks and whites.

Jim Crow laws started to come into effect, primarily but not exclusively in southern states, after the end of Reconstruction in 1877 and lasted until the beginning of the civil rights movement in the 1950s. They functioned to keep black and white people separated, particularly in social settings and social institutions such as marriage.

Examples of Jim Crow Laws

These hateful laws worked to enforce segregation amongst the races, which led to civil rights actions by individuals such as Ida B. Wells, and ultimately to the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s led by people like Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr..

Examples of laws that caused these extreme tensions in the country included the following:

Marriage - "All marriages between a white person and a negro, or between a white person and a person of negro descent to the fourth generation inclusive, are hereby forever prohibited." (Florida law)

Marriage - "All marriages of white persons with Negroes, Mulattos, Mongolians, or Malaya hereafter contracted in the State of Wyoming are and shall be illegal and void." (Wyoming law)

Hospitalization - "The Board of Control shall see that proper and distinct apartments are arranged for said patients [in a mental hospital], so that in no cases shall Negroes and white persons be together." (Georgia law)

Nursing - "No person or corporation shall require any white female nurse to nurse in wards or rooms or hospitals, either public or private, where negro men are placed." (Alabama law)

Barbering - "No colored person shall serve as a barber [to] white women or girls." (Georgia law)

Toilets - "Every employer of white or negro males shall provide for such white or negro males reasonably accessible and separate toilet facilities." (Alabama law)

Buses - "All passenger stations in this state operated by any motor transportation company shall have separate waiting rooms or space and separate ticket windows for the white and colored races." (Alabama law)

Restaurants - "It shall be unlawful to conduct a restaurant or other place for the serving of food in the city, at which white and colored people are served in the same room, unless such white and colored persons are effectually separated by a solid partition extending from the floor upward to a distance of seven feet or higher, and unless a separate entrance from the street is provided for each compartment." (Alabama law)

Beer and Wine - "All persons licensed to conduct the business of selling beer or wine...shall serve either white people exclusively or colored people exclusively and shall not sell to two races within the same room at any time." (Georgia law)

Amateur Baseball - "It shall be unlawful for any amateur white baseball team to play baseball on any vacant lot or baseball diamond within two blocks of a playground devoted to the Negro race, and it shall be unlawful for any amateur colored baseball team to play baseball in any vacant lot or baseball diamond within two blocks of any playground devoted to the white race." (Georgia law)

Burial - "The officer in charge shall not bury, or allow to be buried, any colored persons upon ground set apart or used for the burial of white persons." (Georgia law)

Libraries - "The state librarian is directed to fit up and maintain a separate place for the use of the colored people who may come to the library for the purpose of reading books or periodicals." (North Carolina law)

Teaching - "Any instructor who shall teach in any school, college or institution where members of the white and colored races are received and enrolled as pupils for instruction shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof, shall be fined..." (Oklahoma law)

Schools - "Separate rooms [shall] be provided for the teaching of pupils of African descent, and [when] said rooms are provided, such pupils may not be admitted to the school rooms occupied and used by pupils of Caucasian or other descent." (New Mexico law)

Schools - "[The County Board of Education] shall provide schools of two kinds; those for white children and those for colored children." (Texas law)

Prison - "The warden shall see that the white convicts shall have separate apartments for both eating and sleeping from the negro convicts." (Mississippi law)

From schools and hospitals to prisons and pool halls, the Jim Crow laws sought to keep whites and blacks separate in various domains.

The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow Laws

After Reconstruction, in the name of healing the rift between North and South, the federal government did not enforce the protection of African Americans. So, in the former Confederacy and neighboring states, efforts to legally re-establish the white supremacy of the slavery days were overlooked.

These Jim Crow laws often disguised their cruelty and racism by claiming to provide "separate but equal" facilities to both white and black people. However, this was a falsehood. The black schools, libraries, etc. were often in poorer condition than the white facilities.

Eventually, these laws were struck down. In 1948, President Truman urged Congress to enforce fair voting and hiring practices, and end Jim Crow transportation rules between states. Thanks in no small part to the work of NAACP lawyer Thurgood Marshall, in 1954 the Supreme court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act in 1965, abolishing all Jim Crow laws.

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Reviewing examples of Jim Crow laws shows how the laws sought to separate whites and blacks in many areas of life. These hateful laws ultimately led to civil rights actions led by individuals such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks.

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The reemergence of the KKK (article) | Khan Academy

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Learn for free about math, art, computer programming, economics, physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, finance, history, and more. Khan Academy is a nonprofit with the mission of providing a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere.

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On November 14, 1960, six-year-old Ruby Bridges attended William J. Frantz Elementary School in the 9th Ward of New Orleans. It was her first day of school, as well as New Orleans' court-ordered first day of integrated schools.

If you weren't around in the late '50s and early '60s, it may be difficult to imagine just how contentious was the issue of desegregation. A great many people were violently opposed to it. Hateful, shameful things were said and done in protest. There was an angry mob gathered outside of Frantz Elementary on November 14. It wasn't a mob of malcontents or the dregs of society - it was a mob of well-dressed, upstanding housewives. They were shouting such awful obscenities that audio from the scene had to be masked in television coverage.

The 'Ruby Bridges Painting'

Ruby had to be escorted past this offensiveness by Federal marshals. Naturally, the event made the nightly news and anyone who watched it became aware of the story. Norman Rockwell was no exception, and something about the scene - visual, emotional, or perhaps both - lodged it into his artist's consciousness, where it waited until such time as it could be released.

In 1963, Norman Rockwell ended his long relationship with "The Saturday Evening Post" and began working with its competitor "LOOK." He approached Allen Hurlburt, the Art Director at "LOOK," with an idea for a painting of (as Hurlburt wrote) "the Negro child and the marshals." Hurlburt was all for it and told Rockwell it would merit "a complete spread with a bleed on all four sides. The trim size of this space is 21 inches wide by 13 1/4 inches high." Additionally, Hurlburt mentioned that he needed the painting by November 10th in order to run it in an early January 1964 issue.

Rockwell Used Local Models

The child portrays Ruby Bridges as she walked to Frantz Elementary School surrounded, for her protection, by Federal marshals. Of course, we didn't know her name was Ruby Bridges at the time, as the press had not released her name out of concern for her safety. As far as most of the United States knew, she was a nameless six-year-old African-American remarkable in her solitude and for the violence her small presence in a "Whites Only" school engendered.

Cognizant only of her gender and race, Rockwell enlisted the help of then-nine-year-old Lynda Gunn, the granddaughter of a family friend in Stockbridge. Gunn posed for five days, her feet propped at angles with blocks of wood to emulate walking. On the final day, Gunn was joined by the Stockbridge Chief of Police and three U.S. Marshals from Boston.

Rockwell also shot several photographs of his own legs taking steps to have more references of folds and creases in walking men's pant legs. All of these photographs, sketches, and quick painting studies were employed to create the finished canvas.

Technique and Medium

This painting was done in oils on canvas, as were all of Norman Rockwell's other works. You will note, too, that its dimensions are proportionate to the "21 inches wide by 13 1/4 inches high" that Allen Hurlburt requested. Unlike other types of visual artists, illustrators alwayshave space parameters in which to work.

The first thing that stands out in "The Problem We All Live With" is its focal point: the girl. She is positioned slightly left of center but balanced by the large, red splotch on the wall right of center. Rockwell took artistic license with her pristine white dress, hair ribbon, shoes, and socks (Ruby Bridges was wearing a plaid dress and black shoes in the press photograph). This all-white outfit against her dark skin immediately leaps out of the painting to catch the viewer's eye.

The white-on-black area lies in stark contrast to the rest of the composition. The sidewalk is gray, the wall is mottled old concrete, and the Marshals' suits are boringly neutral. In fact, the only other areas of engaging color are the lobbed tomato, the red explosion it has left on the wall, and the Marshals' yellow armbands.

Rockwell also deliberately leaves out the Marshals' heads. They are more powerful symbols because of their anonymity. They are faceless forces of justice ensuring that a court order (partially visible in the left-most marshal's pocket) is enforced - despite the rage of the unseen, screaming mob. The four figures form a sheltering bulwark around the little girl, and the only sign of their tension lies in their clenched right hands.

As the eye travels in a counter-clockwise ellipse around the scene, it is easy to overlook two barely-noticeable elements that are the crux of "The Problem We All Live With." Scrawled on the wall are the racial slur, "N----R," and the menacing acronym, " KKK."

Where to See 'The Problem We All Live With'

The initial public reaction to "The Problem We All Live With" was stunned disbelief. This was not the Norman Rockwell everyone had grown to expect: the wry humor, the idealized American life, the heartwarming touches, the areas of vibrant color - all of these were conspicuous in their absence. "The Problem We All Live With" was a stark, muted, uncomplicated composition, and the topic! The topic was as humorless and uncomfortable as it gets.

Some previous Rockwell fans were disgusted and thought the painter had taken leave of his senses. Others denounced his "liberal" ways using derogatory language. Many readers squirmed, as this was not the Norman Rockwell they had come to expect. However, the majority of "LOOK" subscribers (after they got over their initial shock) began to give integration more serious thought than they had before. If the issue bothered Norman Rockwell so much that he was willing to take a risk, surely it deserved their closer scrutiny.

Now, nearly 50 years later, it is easier to gauge the importance of "The Problem We All Live With" when it first appeared in 1964. Every school in the United States is integrated, at least by law if not in fact. Although headway has been made, we have yet to become a colorblind society. There are still racists among us, much as we may wish they weren't. Fifty years, half a century, and still the fight for equality continues. In light of this, Norman Rockwell's "The Problem We All Live With" stands out as a more courageous and prescient statement than we originally supposed.

When not out on loan or touring, the painting can be viewed at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.

"Home." Norman Rockwell Museum, 2019.

Meyer, Susan E. "Norman Rockwells People." Hardcover, Nuova edizione (New Edition) edition, Crescent, March 27, 1987.

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"The Problem We All Live With" by Norman Rockwell

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On November 14, 1960, six-year-old Ruby Bridges attended William J. Frantz Elementary School in the 9th Ward of New Orleans. It was her first day of school, as well as New Orleans' court-ordered first day of integrated schools.

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THE HELP (2011) | (Good Movies) | Hollywood.com Movie Trailers | #goodmovies #movies #movietrailers

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One Of The 'Little Rock Nine' Reflects On Integrating Little Rock Central High School

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13th | Dr. Angela Davis Puts the System on Trial | Netflix

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Eight of the surviving "Little Rock Nine" students recall milestone