Cival Rights Act 1964 :: essays research papers fc

When the Government Stood Up For Civil Rights "All my life Ive been sick and deteriorate, and now Im just sick and tired of being sick and tired. No one can honestly say Negroes are satisfied. Weve only been patient, but how much more patience can we confirm?" Mrs. Hamer said these words in 1964, a month and a day before the historic Civil Rights Act of 1964 would be signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson. She speaks for the mood of a race, a race that for centuries has built the nation of the States, literally, with blood, sweat, and passive acceptance. She speaks for black Americans who have been second class citizens in their own phratry too long. She speaks for the race that would be patient no longer that would be accepting no more. Mrs. Hamer speaks for the African Americans who stood up in the 1950s and refused to sit down. They were the people who direct the greatest endeavour in modern American history - the civil rights military campaign. It was a mov ement that would be more than a fragment of history, it was a movement that would become a measure of our lives (Shipler 12). When Martin Luther King Jr. stirred up the conscience of a nation, he gave voice to a long lain dormant pietism in America, a voice that the government could no longer ignore. The government finally answered on July 2nd with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is historically significant because it stands as a defining piece of civil rights legislation, being the first time the national government had declared equality for blacks. The civil rights movement was a campaign led by a number of organizations, supported by many individuals, to end discrimination and achieve equality for American Blacks (Mooney 776). The brain of the struggle came during the 1950s and the 1960s when the feeling of oppression intensified and efforts increased to gain access to public accommodations, increased voting rights, and better educational opportunitie s (Mooney). Civil rights in America began with the adoption of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the Constitution, which ended slavery and freed blacks in theory. The Civil Rights Acts of 1866 and 1875 were passed, guaranteeing the rights of blacks in the courts and access to public accommodation. These were, however, declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, who decided that the 14th did not protect blacks from violation of civil rights, by individuals.