Civil Rights Act of 1957

The Civil Rights Act of 1957 was a civil rights law in the United States, whose focus was on the right to vote. It was the first Civil Rights Act, which was passed after the end of Reconstruction by Congress.

After the Supreme Court in 1954 declared in Brown v. Board of Education that racial segregation in schools unconstitutional, proclaimed white Southerners in Virginia that they would make " massive resistance ". The violence against blacks took there, as in other states, too. So also in Arkansas, where the U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower had to send federal troops to the capital of Little Rock, to allow nine black students to attend a previously pure white school. Attacks on people who were suspected of supporting the civil rights movement active and bombings schools and churches in the South also hereafter stopped. This led the Eisenhower administration to introduce a new law to protect the voting rights of blacks.

Democratic Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, a staunch segregationist, held the longest filibuster in U.S. history to prevent the law. His speech lasted 24 hours and 18 minutes. He started when he presented each electoral law of the states in alphabetical order. Later, he was still reading the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights and George Washington 's Farewell Address ago.

The Act passed the House of Representatives with 285 to 126 votes. When the Republicans voted 167 to 19 in favor. The Democrats voted 118 for and 107 against the law. In the Senate, Senators voted 72 for and 18 against the law. When the Republicans all voted 43 senators for the bill, the Democrats 29 for it and 18 against it. Eisenhower signed the bill on September 9, 1957.

Background and Policy

The aim of the Act was that all Americans could exercise their right to vote. 1957 only 20 % of blacks were registered to vote. Although they represented the majority of the population in many counties and congressional districts in the south, discriminatory voter registration laws most blacks had revoked their right to vote in the late 19th or early 20th century in the states of Reconstruction. Civil rights organizations had evidence of such practices collected, such as literacy tests or elective taxes. While the award of the franchise to the state level deserve this, the federal government has the responsibility to monitor that all American citizens may exercise their constitutional right to vote at the federal level perceive. These include the President of the United States, the Vice President and the Congress.

The Democratic party leader in the Senate, Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas, realized that this civil rights law and could lead to its introduction and debate in Congress for splitting his party, the Democrats were still in a southern block, which came against civil rights, and a fraction divided by supporters from the north. Senators from the South had held many important positions in various committees, which was due to the fact that they are very long belonged to the Senate. Johnson handed the bill to the Judiciary Committee, headed by Senator James Eastland of Mississippi, which ansetzte to alter the design beyond recognition. The Senator Richard B. Russell described the draft as an example of the attempts by the federal government to interfere in the affairs of individual states. Johnson was looking for the law recognition among representatives of the civil rights movement, but on the contrary received recognition of democratic civil rights opponents from the south, because the law was so far weakened, that it was almost unusable.

Filibuster

Strom Thurmond, then a Senator for the Democratic Party in South Carolina and strong supporter of racial segregation, held the longest filibuster in U.S. history to prevent the law. His speech was 24 hours and 18 minutes. Mattresses were brought from a nearby hotel in the Senate, so that the persons liable for the presence of senators, for example, the chairman, were able to sleep. Meanwhile, the content of Thurmond's speech was always trivaler and obscure, including for example, a Biscuitrezept his grandmother. Other Southern senators, who had agreed to a compromise, not to use a filibuster against the law proposal were upset about Thurmond because they thought that his behavior would make them appear to be incompetent with voters. Other senators were again angered by these critics because they had not supported Thurmond.

Provisions of the Act

The law is focused on the right to vote. Section 101 created a six-member Civil Rights Commission, which information should collect, how citizens are deprived of their right to vote based on their main color, race, religion or national origin, the legal background and the laws and policies of the federal government. You should register complaints from people who had any difficulties in registering or choose. It was determined that two years after the adoption of the Act, the Commission must submit a final report to the President and Congress. Subsequently, the Commission should be dissolved.

Part IV, Section 131 is the most important part of the law. It prohibits the intimidation, coercion or otherwise like disability of a person in the exercising of their right to vote in presidential and congressional elections. The Federal Attorney General should take the necessary measures, including injunctions and order means, with penalties of up to $ 1,000 fine or six months imprisonment to enforce the law. Furthermore, the accused in civil lawsuits persons were granted far-reaching guarantees. So it became federal judges are allowed to carry out hearings without juries in such cases. Because blacks were excluded in the south not only expansive right to vote, but it was also not allowed them to be part of a jury.

The final version of the Act made ​​responsible for the enforcement of civil rights, both the Commission for Citizens' Rights and the Office of the Deputy Attorney General. As a result, the department for civil rights was on 9 December 1957 on the instructions of the Attorney General William P. Rogers, founded within the Ministry of Justice. Until then, since the Reconstruction period, the department to prosecute crimes at the federal level for the enforcement of civil rights was responsible.

Follow the Law

Although the adoption of the Law, strengthened the capabilities of the federal government to influence the civil rights legislation of the several States, the actual effect was limited. Because of the way as it was passed, the Government had problems enforce it. Until 1960, the turnout of blacks had increased by 3%. The passage of the bill showed, however, that the federal government was willing to varying degrees, to take up the cause of civil rights.

At this time, Martin Luther King was 28 years old and has become one of the most important leaders of the civil rights movement, he spoke out against the supporters of the idea of white supremacy. Supporters of racial segregation had black churches and building of organizations of continuing education and wäherregistrierung of blacks devoted to lit. Similarly, blacks were physically attacked, which were active as activists, or were suspected of activism. King sent a telegram to Eisenhower in which he asked him to make a speech and thereby " to harness the power of his great office, to alert people in the South on the moral nature of this problem ." Eisenhower replied: " I do not know what would bring another speech at the present time. "

Disappointed King sent another telegram to Eisenhower in which he made his comment " a profound disappointment for millions of Americans with good will, in the North and South, which look up to you [ Eisenhower ] for leadership and guidance, in this period of inevitable social change ". King tried a meeting with President Eisenhower to arrange, but reached only one with Vice President Richard Nixon, which lasted two hours. It has been reported that Nixon had been impressed by King and that he had explained to the President that he looked forward to meeting with him in the future.

Subsequent civil rights laws

The Civil Rights Act of 1960 should fix some of the shortcomings of the 1957 Act. It expanded the powers of federal judges concerning the preservation of the right to vote. The law also required the local authorities to carry out comprehensive choice statistics for an investigation so that the government could determine if and where there is a systematic discrimination of certain groups.

The civil rights movement continued to grow after the verdict and tried non-violent demonstrations to draw attention to their cause. President John F. Kennedy demanded in a speech on civil rights on June 11, 1963 to adopt a new law that " all Americans concede the right to be served in all public institutions alike - hotels, restaurants, theaters, retail stores and similar institutions " as well as a " greater protection of the right to choose. " Kennedy responded with his speech at a series of protests by the civil rights movement, in particular the Birmingham campaign in May 1963.

In the summer of 1963 numerous civil rights organizations worked together to educate the blacks in Mississippi about their right to vote and to register as voters. In Freedom Summer 1964 hundreds of students traveled from the north to the south in order to participate in such projects. The media coverage and the violent backlash, including the murder of three civil rights activists in Mississippi, brought support across the country for a new Civil Rights Act.

After Kennedy's assassination, the new President Lyndon B. Johnson was responsible for the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which racial segregation and racial discrimination ban, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which election tax and other laws overturned that blacks and poor people of should keep away from the polls. The law also gave the federal authorities far-reaching control rights to prevent future discrimination.

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