The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was the first rights act to pass since the Civil War. In 1957, a civil rights section was established in the Justice Department. The first person to propose an act since the Civil War was John F. Kennedy (History.com 2018). He wanted to find a way to stop all racial demonstrations of African Americans in places like Birmingham (Mayer 2004). Thanks to the Civil Rights Act, African Americans aren't segregated from places like schools and restaurants, and are allowed equality in jobs and education. Many Southerners were not happy about African Americans being freed people after the Civil War. Many southern states used poll taxes and literacy tests (for African Americans didn’t a lot of education at the time) to keep African Americans disenfranchised from whites (History.com 2018). Reasons like that are reasons why J.F.K. wanted to create the Civil Rights Act (Mayer 2004). When news got around of a civil rights act being made, some people tried to stop it. Some Segregationists in Virginia made a mischievous attempt to sabotage the bill by creating a state amendment that banned discrimination against women (History.com 2018). …show more content…
When J.F.K. was assassinated, the passage of the bill sped up. It sped up because Johnson (vice president at the time who became president after J.F.K. was assassinated) wanted congress to pass the bill to show homage for J.F.K because he started the creation of the act. Some senators tried to slow down the act as much as possible. Senator Robert Byrd Filibustered for fourteen hours to keep the bill from coming to vote (Joan 2014). Senator Goldwater gave speeches against the bill and receive little support from African Americans because of his point of view (Mayer