On this day in 1964, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law (to boost his poor record regarding civil rights, he finished what Kennedy started). This landmark law prohibits racial discrimination in public accommodations, publicly owned or operated facilities, employment and union membership, and voter registration.
Progress? See stats here.
In addition to helping end Jim Crow laws of the South, the Act did something else. Title VII 'prohibits private employers from refusing to hire or from firing or discriminating against any person because of race, color, sex, religion, or nation origin.' Interestingly, Southern congressmen tried to sabotage the bill by adding in gender. They thought that this would surely kill the bill. To their dismay, the bill was passed with the gender specification intact.
For more info: full text, full details/history of the Act, and deb posted the Census stats, too.
note: this was also the day that Thurgood Marshall, the first black Supreme Court justice, was born in 1908.
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