Civil Rights Act of 1957
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The Civil Rights Act of 1957, primarily a voting rights bill, was the first civil rights legislation enacted by Congress in the United States since Reconstruction. After it was proposed to Congress by Republican President Dwight Eisenhower, Southern Democratic senator James Strom Thurmond sustained the longest filibuster in history in an attempt to keep it from becoming law.
[edit] Content and legacy
The goal of the 1957 Civil Rights Act was to ensure all African Americans could exercise their right to vote. By 1957, only about 20% of African Americans had registered to vote. The Democrat Senate leader, Lyndon Baines Johnson, realized that the bill and its journey through Congress could tear apart his party made up of anti-civil rights and pro-civil rights members. Johnson sent the bill to the judiciary committee led by Senator James Eastland, an anti-civil rights senator from Mississippi. Eastland changed and altered the bill almost beyond recognition after the very public outburst by Senator Richard Russell from Georgia who claimed that it was an example of the Federal government wanting to impose its laws on states. Johnson sought recognition from the civil rights advocates for passing the bill while also receiving recognition from the mostly southern anti-civil rights Democrats for "killing the bill."
Because of Democrat opposition and amendment of The Civil Rights Act of 1957, it was largely ineffective in its enforcement and its scope. Statistical history notes that by 1960, slightly fewer blacks were voting in the South than had been in 1956. It did however open the door to later legislation that was effective in securing voting rights as well as ending legal segregation and providing housing rights. In particular, it established the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights as a presidential appointee. Subsequently, on December 9, 1957, the Civil Rights Division was established by order of Attorney General William P. Rogers, giving the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights a distinct division to command. Previously, civil rights lawyers enforced Reconstruction-era laws from within the Criminal Division.
The bill provided guarantees for African-American voting rights in the South. It did so, in part, by establishing a voting-referee system. Federal district judges were charged with appointing referees to enroll voters in areas where the government had noted local authorities denying voting rights in an ammendum to the Act made in April 1960. Other changes made in 1960 required local authorities to maintain voting records for up to twenty two months, in order for federal investigators to determine if any of the law had been violated. In addition, the act contained provisions making it illegal to interfere with federal court orders by threats of force (to subdue mob violence relating to then-recent school desegregation disputes. ) The act also called for the creation of the Civil Rights Commission to investigate issues regarding race relations. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 made racial discrimination and segregation illegal.
