Concept
Civil Rights Act of 1964
Overview
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Pub. L. 88–352, 78 Stat. 241, enacted July 2, 1964) is a landmark civil rights and labor law in the United States that outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. It prohibits unequal application of voter registration requirements, racial segregation in schools and public accommodations, and employment discrimination. The act is considered one of the most significant legislative achievements in American history.
Initially, powers given to enforce the act were weak, but these were supplemented during later years. Congress asserted its authority to legislate under several different parts of the United States Constitution, principally its enumerated power to regulate interstate commerce under the Commerce Clause of Article I, Section 8, its duty to guarantee all citizens equal protection of the laws under the 14th Amendment, and its duty to protect voting rights under the 15th Amendment.
The legislation was proposed by President John F. Kennedy in June 1963, but it was opposed by filibuster in the Senate. After Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson pushed the bill forward. The United States House of Representatives passed the bill on February 10, 1964, and after a 72-day filibuster, it passed the United States Senate on June 19, 1964. The final vote was 290–130 in the House of Representatives and 73–27 in the Senate. After the House agreed to a subsequent Senate amendment, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was signed into law by President Johnson at the White House on July 2, 1964.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.
The general assembly shall not have power to infringe this constitution; to abridge the civil rights of any person on account of his religious belief; to restrain him from professing and supporting that belief, or to compel him to contributions, other than those he shall have personally stipulated for the support of that or any other; to ordain death for any crime but treason or murder, or military offences; to…
Thomas Jefferson, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 8
Close in meaning to Civil Rights Act of 1964; the term itself is not named.
As soon as the demand for the abolition of feudalism and for the equality of rights was set on the order of the day it had necessarily to take an ever widening scope. As soon as the claim was made in behalf of commerce and industry it had also to be made in behalf of the peasants who, being in every stage of slavery from serfdom labored for the most part without any return for the…
Friedrich Engels, Landmarks of Scientific Socialism
Close in meaning to Civil Rights Act of 1964; the term itself is not named.
At the very beginning of the struggle, the military government in Baltimore imprisoned in Fort MacHenry a few citizens, sympathizers with the slave-holding South, in spite of Habeas Corpus. The question of the lawfulness or the unlawfulness of such action became the object of fierce disputes between so-called "high authorities." The judge of the Supreme Court, decided that the President had neither the right to…
Leon Trotsky, Dictatorship vs. Democracy
Close in meaning to Civil Rights Act of 1964; the term itself is not named.
Philosophers who discussed Civil Rights Act of 1964
Related ideas
- Women's rights
- Massachusetts
- Michigan
- New Deal
- United States House of Representatives
- Martin Luther King Jr.
- Malcolm X
- Nebraska
- New Mexico
- Pennsylvania
- President of the United States
- United States Senate
- Race (human categorization)
- Jews
- Los Angeles Times
- Sexual orientation
- PBS
- The New York Times
- Constitution of the United States
- Supreme Court of the United States
- Civil and political rights
- Social equality
- Hubert Humphrey
- San Francisco
Place in the tradition
Part of Liberalism.