African Americans And The Civil Rights Act Of 1964

African Americans, women, and other minorities have been at a disadvantage in the United States since the Constitution was written. African Americans were brought to the United States, forced into slavery, and still struggled to find a voice and gain true civil rights. For decades, society told women that their places were in the home, and that they should not have the opportunities to work alongside men outside of the home. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was the first major social reform since Reconstruction, marking a major milestone in the civil rights movement. While the act succeeded in giving African Americans and women equality in the workplace and school system, it also inspired other groups to develop new strategies to work towards achieving

Kennedy compared white and black babies growing up in the same environments at the same time. He argued that a black baby had a much lower chance of completing high school than a white baby born in the same place on the same day. In 2010, a study confirmed Kennedy’s theory. Black high school freshmen had an eighty percent chance of graduating high school compared to whites. The life expectancy of blacks was also four years shorter than that of the opposite race. President Kennedy knew that he was responsible for changing these statistics and decided that creating of an act was necessary to do so. John F. Kennedy realized that things were getting out of hand after the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham and the murder of Medgar Evers. After his death, President Lyndon B. Johnson assumed office and was in charge of shepherding the bill that would become the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Johnson had been a loyal liberal and was known to vote on what was popular, but knew that he would gain more supporters through the completion of the bill. With the help of new supporters, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 had a political impact on the United States, allowing Lyndon B. Johnson to win the presidential election against Barry Goldwater in 1964. Most Republicans had supported the creation of the act, but Goldwater had not because he believed that the act both forced the federal government into state affairs and interfered with a person’s right to

Several men claimed that they were willing to stand up for “the weaker sex” and argued that without the act “white, Christian women would be treated unfairly.” As these men made their arguments for the act, they were often met with a response of laughter. The amount of people who did not take women’s rights seriously ironically pushed the act further and lead to its success. Women who supported the act refused to use any arguments that were made by men because they did not like being referred to as the “weaker sex.” Several southern representatives tried to make it harder for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to be passed by deciding to include women’s rights. They hoped that by doing so, debates would delay the bill’s progress and fewer people would support it. However, their plan backfired and women’s rights were successfully included in the act. While some women were focused on only gaining rights for white women because it would be “easier” to accomplish, others decided to unite with black women to accomplish a larger goal. Both black and white women were successful in gaining rights through the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Through the act, they gained access to skilled jobs in the professional work area that had previously been dominated by white men. After the act was passed, more white women became attorneys, teachers, doctors, and business managers. Black women also became policemen,