Civil Rights

• 1964 Civil Rights Act- Federal GOV the legal tools to end de jure segregation in the South
• Racial discrimination was no longer enshrined in law & public transport, universities, hospitals, playgrounds, libraries, museums, privately owned theatres, movie house, restaurants, gas stations & hotels were to be desegregated in 1965
• The Act forbade discrimination in employment on the grounds of race, region & sex & established an Equal Employment Commission
• Congress passed the Act because of:

  • Activism of civil rights organisations- NAACP, SCLC, CORE & SNCC
  • Sympathetic responses of Northern whites to the civil rights movement
  • Feeling that it would be a suitable tribute to the assassinated President Kennedy who introduced the Bill
  • President Johnson commitment of civil rights & his persuasion of Congress
• Strengths-

  
  

  Act helped revolutionise the South- many public places desegregated- racism continued not be legislated out of existence- Act supported the Supreme Court's ruling that schools should be de

  segregated- 68% of Southern black schoolchildren still attended segregated schools in 1968- % improved dramatically by 1973- nearly half of black children attended majority white schools- a process of re-segregation began after the war
• Greatest Weakness-

  
  

  Did little to facilitate black voting in the Deep South