Civil Rights Act of 1957

The Civil Rights Act of 1957 was the first federal civil rights legislation passed by the United States Congress since the Civil Rights Act of 1875. The bill was passed by the 85th United States Congress and signed into law by President Dwight D. Eisenhower on September 9, 1957.

This article is about the 1957 Civil Rights Act. For other American laws called Civil Rights Acts, see Civil Rights Act.

Civil Rights Act of 1957
Long titleAn act to provide means of further securing and protecting the civil rights of persons within the jurisdiction of the United States.
Enacted bythe 85th United States Congress
EffectiveSeptember 9, 1957
Citations
Public law85-315
Statutes at Large71 Stat. 634
Legislative history
  • Introduced in the House as H.R. 6127
  • Committee consideration by Judiciary
  • Passed the House on June 18, 1957[1] (286-126)
  • Passed the Senate on August 7, 1957[2] (72-18) with amendment
  • House agreed to Senate amendment on August 29, 1957[3] (60-15)
  • Signed into law by President Dwight D. Eisenhower on September 9, 1957
Major amendments
Civil Rights Act of 1960
Civil Rights Act of 1964

The Supreme Court's 1954 ruling in the case of Brown v. Board of Education brought the issue of school desegregation to the fore of public attention, as Southern leaders began a campaign of "massive resistance" against desegregation. In the midst of this campaign, President Eisenhower proposed a civil rights bill designed to provide federal protection for African-American voting rights; most African Americans in the Southern United States had been effectively disenfranchised by various state and local laws. Though the civil rights bill passed Congress, opponents of the act were able to remove several provisions, limiting its immediate impact. During the debate over the law, Senator Strom Thurmond conducted the longest one-person filibuster in Senate history.

Despite having a limited impact on African-American voter participation, the Civil Rights Act of 1957 did establish the United States Commission on Civil Rights and the United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division. Congress would later pass far more effective civil rights laws in the form of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Background

Following the Supreme Court ruling in Brown, which eventually led to the integration, also called desegregation, of public schools,[4] Southern whites began a campaign of "Massive Resistance." Violence against blacks rose; in Little Rock, Arkansas where President Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered U.S. paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division to protect nine black teenagers integrating into a public school, the first time federal troops were deployed in the South to settle civil rights issues since the Reconstruction Era.[5] There had been continued physical assaults against suspected activists and bombings of schools and churches in the South. Partly in an effort to defuse calls for more far-reaching reforms, President Eisenhower proposed a civil rights bill that would increase the protection of African American voting rights.[6]

By 1957, only about 20% of blacks were registered to vote. Despite being the majority in numerous counties and congressional districts in the South, most blacks had been effectively disfranchised by discriminatory voter registration rules and laws in those states since the late 19th and early 20th centuries that were heavily instituted and propagated by Southern Democrats. Civil rights organizations had collected evidence of discriminatory practices, such as the administration of literacy and comprehension tests and poll taxes. While the states had the right to establish rules for voter registration and elections, the federal government found an oversight role in ensuring that citizens could exercise the constitutional right to vote for federal officers: electors for president and vice president and members of the US Congress.

Passage
President Dwight D. Eisenhower signing the Civil Rights Act of 1957 on September 9, 1957.

The Democratic Senate Majority Leader, Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas, realized that the bill and its journey through Congress could tear apart his party, as southern Democrats vehemently opposed civil rights, and its northern members were strongly in favor of them. Southern Democratic senators occupied chairs of numerous important committees because of their long seniority. The fact that in the almost the century between the end of Reconstruction and the 1960s that white Southerners voted solidly as a bloc for the Democrats meant Southern Democrats in Congress never lost their seats in elections, thus ensuring that they had more seniority than senators and congressmen from other parts of the country. Johnson sent the bill to the Senate Judiciary Committee, led by Democratic Senator James Eastland of Mississippi, who drastically altered the bill. Democratic Senator Richard Russell, Jr., of Georgia had denounced the bill as an example of the federal government seeking to impose its laws on states. Johnson sought recognition from civil rights advocates for passing the bill as well as recognition from the anti-civil rights Democrats for weakening the bill so much as to make it toothless.[7]

The bill passed 285-126 in the House of Representatives with a majority of both parties' support (Republicans 167–19, Democrats 118–107)[8] It then passed 72-18 in the Senate, again with a majority of both parties (Republicans 43–0, Democrats 29–18).[9] President Eisenhower signed the bill on September 9, 1957.

Filibuster

Then-Democratic Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, an ardent segregationist, sustained the longest one-person filibuster in history in an attempt to keep the bill from becoming law.[10] His one-man filibuster lasted 24 hours and 18 minutes; he began with readings of every US state's election laws in alphabetical order. He later read from the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and George Washington's Farewell Address.

To prevent a quorum call that could have relieved the filibuster by allowing the Senate to adjourn, cots were brought in from a nearby hotel for the legislators to sleep on while Thurmond discussed increasingly irrelevant and obscure topics. Other Southern senators, who had agreed as part of a compromise not to filibuster this bill, were upset with Thurmond. They believed his defiance made them look incompetent to their constituents. Other constituents were upset with their senators because they were seen as not helping Thurmond.[11]

Thurmond pointed out that there was already a federal statute that prosecuted citizens who denied or intimidated voters at voting booths under a fine and/or imprisonment but that the bill then under consideration could legally deny trial by jury to those that continued to do so.[12]

Democratic Representative Charles A. Boyle of Illinois, a member of the powerful Appropriations Subcommittee of Defense, pushed the bill through the House of Representatives.

Content

Section 101 set up a six-member Civil Rights Commission in the executive branch to gather information on citizens' deprivation of voting rights based on color, race, religion, or national origin as well as the legal background, the laws, and the policies of the federal government. The commission was to take testimony or written complaints from individuals on the difficulties in registering and voting. It would submit a final report to the President and the Congress within two years and then cease to exist.

Part IV, Section 131, banned intimidating, coercing or otherwise interfering with the rights of persons to vote for electors for President and members of Congress. The United States Attorney General was allowed to institute actions, including injunctions and charges of contempt of court, with fines not to exceed $1,000 and six months imprisonment. Extensive safeguards for the rights of accused were provided by the statute. US federal judges were allowed to hear cases related to the Act with or without juries.

Not being able to vote in most of the South, blacks were then excluded from state juries there. Federal jury selection had been tied to state jury selection rules, thus in some instances excluding both blacks and women as federal jurors. Section 161 freed federal courts from state jury rules and specified qualifications for jurors in federal courts. "Any citizen" 21 years or older, literate in English, who had resided in the judicial district for a year, excluding convicts and persons with mental or physical infirmities severe enough to make them unable to serve, was eligible. Since neither race nor sex was listed among the qualifications, the provision allowed both blacks and women to serve on juries in trials in federal courts.

The final version of the act established both the Commission on Civil Rights and the office of Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights. Subsequently, on December 9, 1957, the Civil Rights Division was established within the Justice Department by order of US Attorney General William P. Rogers, giving the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights a distinct division to command. Previously, civil rights lawyers had enforced Reconstruction-era civil rights laws from within the Department's Criminal Division.[13]

Aftermath

Although the Act's passage seemed to indicate a growing federal commitment to the cause of civil rights, the legislation was limited. Alterations to the bill made the Act difficult to enforce; by 1960, black voting had increased by only 3%.[5] Its passage showed varying degrees of willingness to support civil rights. The Act restricted itself to protecting participation in federal elections.

Martin Luther King Jr., then 28, was a developing leader in the Civil Rights Movement and spoke out against white supremacists. Segregationists had burned black churches, which were centers of education and organizing for voter registration, and physically attacked black activists, including women. King sent a telegram to Eisenhower to make a speech to the South and asked him to use "the weight of your great office to point out to the people of the South the moral nature of the problem." Eisenhower responded, "I don't know what another speech would do about the thing right now."

Disappointed, King sent another telegram to Eisenhower stating that the latter's comments were "a profound disappointment to the millions of Americans of goodwill, north and south, who earnestly are looking to you for leadership and guidance in this period of inevitable social change." He tried to set up a meeting with the President but was given a two-hour meeting with Vice President Richard Nixon. It is reported that Nixon was impressed with King and told Eisenhower that he might enjoy meeting King later.[14]

Subsequent legislation

The Civil Rights Act of 1960 addressed some of the shortcomings of the 1957 Act by expanding the authority of federal judges to protect voting rights and by requiring local authorities to maintain comprehensive voting records for review so that the government could determine if there were patterns of discrimination against certain populations.[15]

The Civil Rights Movement continued to expand, with protesters leading nonviolent demonstrations to mark their cause. As president, John F. Kennedy called for a new bill in his televised Civil Rights Address of June 11, 1963,[16] in which he asked for legislation "giving all Americans the right to be served in facilities which are open to the public—hotels, restaurants, theaters, retail stores, and similar establishments" as well as "greater protection for the right to vote." Kennedy delivered the speech after a series of civil rights protests, most notably the Birmingham campaign, which concluded in May 1963.

In the summer of 1963, various parts of the civil rights movement collaborated to run voter education and voter registration drives in Mississippi. During the 1964 Freedom Summer, hundreds of students from the North and West came to participate in voter drives and community organizing. Media coverage, especially of the violent backlash exemplified by the murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner near Philadelphia, Mississippi, contributed to national support for civil rights legislation.

After the Kennedy assassination, President Lyndon Johnson helped secure passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which made racial discrimination and segregation illegal,[17] as well as the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which abolished the poll tax and other means of keeping blacks and the poor from registering to vote and from voting, established record-keeping and oversight, and provided for federal enforcement in areas with documented patterns of discrimination or low voter turnout.

References
  1. "H.R. 6127. PASSAGE". GovTrack.us.
  2. "HR. 6127. PASSAGE". GovTrack.us.
  3. "HR. 6127. CIVIL RIGHTS ACT OF 1957. MOTION THAT SENATE CONCUR IN HOUSE-APPROVED PROVISION PERMITTING A JURY TRIAL IN SOME CRIMINAL CONTEMPT CASES INVOLVING VOTING RIGHTS". GovTrack.us.
  4. McNeese, Tim (2008). The Civil Rights Movement: Striving for Justice. New York: Infobase Publishing.
  5. James A. Miller, "An inside look at Eisenhower's civil rights record" Archived 2012-01-07 at the Wayback Machine The Boston Globe at boston.com, 21 November 2007, accessed 28 October 2011
  6. Pach & Richardson, pp. 145–146.
  7. Caro, Robert, Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Chapter 39
  8. "HR 6127. CIVIL RIGHTS ACT OF 1957. -- House Vote #42 -- Jun 18, 1957". GovTrack.us. Retrieved August 15, 2019.
  9. "HR. 6127. CIVIL RIGHTS ACT OF 1957. -- Senate Vote #75 -- Aug 7, 1957". GovTrack.us. Retrieved August 15, 2019.
  10. Senate.gov web site
  11. Caro, Robert (2002). Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson. New York: Knopf. ISBN 0-394-52836-0.
  12. "Congressional Record" (PDF). Retrieved January 22, 2020.
  13. "Civil Rights Act of 1957". crdl.usg.edu. Retrieved April 15, 2020.
  14. Nichols, David. A. (2007). A Matter of Justice: Eisenhower and the Beginning of the Civil Rights Revolution. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 9781416541509. OCLC 123968070.
  15. Civil Rights Act of 1960 Archived 2008-10-24 at Archive.today
  16. "Transcript from the JFK library". the JFK library. June 11, 1963. Archived from the original on February 5, 2007. Retrieved October 28, 2011.
  17. "Civil Rights Act of 1964". Archived from the original on October 21, 2010. Retrieved May 29, 2009.

Bibliography
  • Finley, Keith M. (2008). Delaying the Dream: Southern Senators and the Fight Against Civil Rights, 1938–1965. Baton Rouge: LSU Press. ISBN 9780807134610. OCLC 791398684.
  • Pach, Chester J.; Richardson, Elmo (1991). The Presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower (Revised ed.). University Press of Kansas. ISBN 978-0-7006-0437-1.
  • Lane, D. (1958). The civil rights act of 1957. Howard Law Journal, 4(1), 36-49.
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