Civil Rights Legislation and Later Years

Even though all Americans technically had the right to vote, many southern states made it difficult for blacks. They often required them to take voter literacy tests that were confusing, misleading and nearly impossible to pass.

In September 1957, President Eisenhower signed the Civil Rights Act of 1957 into law. It allowed federal prosecution of anyone who tried to prevent someone from voting. This was a step in the right direction, but it did not go far enough. John F. Kennedy pushed for further legislation throughout his presidency, and had already sent the Civil Rights bill to Congress before the March on Washington. It became stalled because of delays.

Then just 3 months after the March on Washington, President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas by Lee Harvey Oswald. Many were fearful that this was racially motivated. Would this be the end of the line for the civil rights movement? Kennedy’s vice-president Lyndon B. Johnson was not known for his progressive stance on race relations, after all, before becoming vice-president he had been the Senate majority leader who fought to water down Eisenhower’s legislation back in 1957. However, in his first address to Congress after the assassination, Johnson vowed – as a tribute to Kennedy’s memory – to see the civil rights bill through to law.

He did it by appeals to conscience, sweet-talking, threatening, and by refusing to allow anything else, at all, to go before Congress until the bill was passed. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was signed amidst continual warnings that his strong-arm championship of the Civil Rights Act would send the Democrat holdouts into Republican arms. This was exactly what happened, and the effects were seen in the 1968 election of Richard Nixon, and it remains the political reality to this day.

The Act contained provisions barring discrimination and segregation in education, public facilities, jobs, and housing. Among other reforms, it created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to ensure fair hiring practices and authorized the US Office of Education to distribute financial aid to communities struggling to desegregate public schools.

Though the Act included provisions to strengthen the voting rights of African Americans in the South, these measures were relatively weak and did not prevent states and election officials from practices that effectively continued to deny southern blacks the vote. Moreover, in their attempts to expand black voter registration, civil rights activists met with the fierce opposition and hostility of Southern white segregationists, many of whom were entrenched in positions of authority.

In March 1965, six hundred activists set out on a march from Selma, Alabama to Montgomery to peacefully protest the continued violations of African Americans’ civil rights. When they reached the Edmund Pettus Bridge over the Alabama River, hundreds of deputies and state troopers attacked them with tear gas, nightsticks, and electric cattle prods.

The event, which the press dubbed “Bloody Sunday,” was broadcast over television and splashed across the front pages of newspapers and magazines, stunning and horrifying the American public. Bloody Sunday galvanized civil rights activists, who converged on Selma to demand federal intervention and express solidarity with the marchers. President Johnson quickly became convinced that additional civil rights legislation was necessary.

A week after Bloody Sunday, President Johnson delivered a nationwide address in which he declared that “all Americans must have the privileges of citizenship regardless of race.” Johnson informed the nation that he was sending a new voting rights bill to Congress, and he urged Congress to act quickly to approve this bill. In less than 5 months, Congress complied, and President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into law.

Black Power

During the summer of 1964, three young activists as part of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) were murdered in their efforts to register black voters. Outrage over this crime radicalized some black activists, who became skeptical of the nonviolent, integrationist tactics of Martin Luther King Jr. and began to adopt a more radical approach that had been advocated by Malcolm X.

Malcolm X (Also known as Malcolm Little and el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz) was an African American leader in the civil rights movement, Muslim minister and supporter of black nationalism. He urged his fellow black Americans to protect themselves against white aggression “by any means necessary,” a stance that often put him at odds with the nonviolent teachings of Martin Luther King Jr. Malcolm X would not have an opportunity to continue his reforms as he was assassinated in New York City in February 1965.

Stokely Carmichael would carry Malcolm X’s torch after his assassination. He was elected to head SNCC in 1966. Carmichael embraced the Black Power Movement, which included black separatism and the use of violence in self-defense. In June 1966, Carmichael declared at a rally that “1966 is the year of the concept of Black Power. The year when black men realize their full worth in society—their dignity and their beauty—and their power—the greatest power on the earth—the power of the right.”

With its commitment to non-violence dropped, Carmichael renamed the SNCC the Student National Coordinating Committee. As the decade continued, other leaders moved the organization further toward black separatism as the most vocal proponents of the movement distanced themselves from the non-violent ways of King Jr.

The Black Panther Party of Self-Defense was also founded in 1966 in Oakland, California. They issued a ten-point program demanding, among other things, freedom, employment, and an immediate end to police brutality. In the spring of 1967, its gun-toting members staged a protest at the state capitol against a gun control bill then being debated by the California state legislature. The Black Panthers espoused a militant form of black self-defense and functioned as a local militia, taking advantage of open-carry gun laws to patrol black neighborhoods in Oakland in order to prevent police harassment and brutality.

The Panthers also provided community services, such as free breakfasts for children, drug and alcohol rehabilitation programs, self-defense classes, and free medical clinics and childcare centers. However, due to the Panthers’ militant rhetoric and armed self-defense, the state of California imposed stricter gun laws, and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover labeled them as a “hate group.” By 1968, he was convinced that they represented “without question… the greatest threat to the internal security of the country.” He launched a thorough, targeted campaign of surveillance, intimidation, exploitation, harassment, and in some cases violence, to attempt to destroy the organization.

With this move towards militancy instead of peace, along with the Vietnam protests in full swing, 1968 was a watershed year. This would only deepen as two assassinations shocked the nation and made it seem that the nation was tearing itself apart.

Martin Luther King Jr. was first assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee by James Earl Ray, an ex-convict, and avowed white supremacist. As you might expect, this only led the Black Panthers to feel justified in their militant stance as the assassination sparked many urban riots and protests.

A mere two months later, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, friend of the Freedom Riders and the younger brother of President John F. Kennedy, was assassinated while campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination in California. His assassination was motivated by a completely different type of racism and nationalism. His assassin was Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian who took issue with Kennedy’s pro-Israel stance.

Unfinished Business

The Civil Rights Movement racked up many notable victories, from the dismantling of Jim Crow segregation in the South, to the passage of federal legislation outlawing racial discrimination, to the widespread awareness of the African American cultural heritage and its unique contributions to the history of the United States.

The 2008 election of the nation’s first African American president, Barack Obama, as well as his re-election in 2012, was a striking indication of just how far the struggle for equality has come. Yet other indicators reveal that there is still much work to do. The goal of full social, economic, and political equality still has not been reached. Modern movements like Black Lives Matter are taking up the struggle today with campaigns against violence and systemic racism towards black people, as well as broader issues such as racial profiling, police brutality, and racial inequality in the United States criminal justice system.

The movement began in 2013 with the use of the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter on social media after the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of African-American teen Trayvon Martin in February 2012. The movement became nationally recognized for street demonstrations following the 2014 deaths of two more African Americans: Michael Brown – resulting in protests and unrest in Ferguson, Missouri – and Eric Garner in New York City. It seems that as successful as the Civil Rights Movement was, there still remains unfinished business in the struggle for full equality.

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