Ad Feedback
CNN Editorial Research
4 minute read
Updated 3:24 PM EDT, Fri June 23, 2023
The civil rights movement in photos —
President Lyndon B. Johnson shakes hands with civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. after signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The LBJ Presidential Library is hosting a Civil Rights Summit this week to mark the 50th anniversary of the legislation.
The civil rights movement in photos —
Jackie Robinson, who broke Major League Baseball's color barrier, poses in the dugout with some of his Brooklyn Dodgers teammates during his first game on April 15, 1947.
The civil rights movement in photos —
Rosa Parks poses for her booking photo after she was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama, for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white passenger in 1955.
The civil rights movement in photos —
Students of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, shout insults at Elizabeth Eckford as she walks toward the school building on the first day of school in 1957. Schools in Arkansas integrated races after the Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education.
The civil rights movement in photos —
As part of his training for sit-in protests in 1960, student Virginius Thornton practices not reacting to smoke being blown in his face.
The civil rights movement in photos —
Freedom Riders sit on a bus during a trip from Montgomery to Jackson, Mississippi, in 1961. The Freedom Riders would brave mobs and endure savage beatings to desegregate interstate travel.
The civil rights movement in photos —
A black woman and a white woman sit next to each other at a New York City restaurant in 1962.
The civil rights movement in photos —
A police dog jumps at a 17-year-old civil rights demonstrator in Birmingham, Alabama, on May 3, 1963. The image appeared on the front page of The New York Times the next day.
The civil rights movement in photos —
King addresses the crowd at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, where he delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech on August 28, 1963.
The civil rights movement in photos —
People gather on the National Mall during the March on Washington on August 28, 1963.
The civil rights movement in photos —
Sarah Jean Collins, 12, lies in bed after being blinded by the dynamite that killed her sister in the bombing of a Birmingham church in September 1963. Four African-American girls were killed in the blast.
The civil rights movement in photos —
The family of Carol Robertson, a 14-year-old girl killed in the church bombing, attend a graveside service for her in Birmingham on September 17, 1963.
The civil rights movement in photos —
A 1964 FBI poster seeks information on the whereabouts of Andrew Goodman, James Earl Chaney and Michael Henry Schwerner. The three civil rights workers disappeared in rural Mississippi in the summer of 1964. Their bodies were found 44 days later. They had been tortured before they were murdered.
The civil rights movement in photos —
Nation Of Islam leader and civil rights activist Malcolm X poses for a portrait in 1965. Malcolm was a symbol of black defiance who ridiculed King's stance on nonviolence.
The civil rights movement in photos —
The car belonging to Viola Liuzzo sits off the road near Selma, Alabama, in 1965. Liuzzo, a white housewife from Detroit, felt compelled to drive to Selma to help the civil rights movement after seeing demonstrators beaten on television. While driving on a deserted road in the small town one night, Liuzzo's car was run off the road and she was shot to death. Her death showed the nation that the civil rights movement was not just an African-American struggle -- it was an American struggle.
The civil rights movement in photos —
Memphis sanitation workers hold signs with the slogan "I am a man" during a strike in 1968. Their campaign against discrimination and poor conditions in the workplace brought King to Memphis.
The civil rights movement in photos —
King lies bleeding at the feet of other civil rights leaders after he was shot on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968.
The civil rights movement in photos —
King's widow, Coretta Scott King, and their daughter Yolanda sit in a car on their way to his funeral in Atlanta on April 9, 1968.
The civil rights movement in photos —
U.S. Olympians Tommie Smith, center, and John Carlos raise their fists in protest during the U.S. national anthem, which was being played after Smith won the 200 meters at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City.
The civil rights movement in photos
CNN —
Here is a look at the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Considered the nation’s most important civil rights legislation since Reconstruction (1865-1877), it prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or national origin. Following that law, US President Lyndon B. Johnson signed landmark civil rights bills including the 1965 Voting Rights Act and the 1968 Fair Housing Act.
Other Facts
“Each year, from 1945 until 1957, Congress considered and failed to pass a civil rights bill. Congress finally passed limited Civil Rights Acts in 1957 and 1960, but they offered only moderate gains. As a result of the 1957 Act, the United States Commission on Civil Rights was formed to investigate, report on, and make recommendations to the President concerning civil rights issues.” - National Park Service
The act had the longest filibuster in US Senate history, and after the long civil rights struggle, the Senate passed the act 73-27 in July 1964. It became law less than a year after President John F. Kennedy’s assassination.
More Republicans voted in favor of the Civil Rights Act than Democrats.
Timeline
June 11, 1963 - US President John F. Kennedy asking Congress to enact civil rights legislation during his Radio and Television Report to the American People on Civil Rights.
June 19, 1963 - Kennedy sends his comprehensive proposal for the Civil Rights Act to the US Congress for consideration. The bill, H.R. 7152, is introduced the following day.
June 26, 1963 - US Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy speaks before the House Committee of the Judiciary in support of H.R. 7152.
October 15, 1963 - Robert Kennedy testifies for the second time before the House Judiciary Committee to try to save the bill.
November 20, 1963 - A version of the bill passes from the House Judiciary Committee on to the House Rules Committee.
November 22, 1963 - Lee Harvey Oswald assassinates Kennedy. Lyndon B. Johnson is sworn-in as president.
November 27, 1963 - Johnson speaks before a joint session of Congress, “No memorial oration or eulogy could more eloquently honor President Kennedy’s memory than the earliest possible passage of the civil rights bill for which he fought so long.”
December 1963 - The House adjourns with the bill still in committee.
January 1964 - The House Rules Committee debates the bill.
February 10, 1964 - The bill passes the House.
February 17, 1964 - The bill arrives in the Senate.
March 30, 1964-June 10, 1964 - The Senate debates the bill for 60 working days, including seven Saturdays, with many attempts to filibuster the bill. The Senate Committee on the Judiciary is not involved.
June 9-10, 1964 - US Senator Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia filibusters the bill for 14 hours and 13 minutes before the Senate votes 71 to 29 to cloture the bill. A motion to cloture forces an immediate vote. This vote by two-thirds or more brings all debate to an end.
June 19, 1964 - In a 73 to 27 vote, the Senate adopts an amended bill, which is sent back to the House.
June 21, 1964 - Three young men volunteering for the voter registration drive, “Freedom Summer,” disappear in segregated Mississippi. Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Earl Chaney were driving to a Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) office in Meridian, Mississippi, that evening. This leads to a national outcry, protests and an FBI investigation.
July 2, 1964 - The House of Representatives adopts the Senate version of the bill 289-126.
July 2, 1964 - Johnson signs the bill into law.
August 4, 1964 - The FBI finds the bodies of the three missing civil rights workers in Philadelphia, Mississippi. They had been shot and buried beneath a dam.
December 14, 1964 - The Supreme Court upholds the constitutionality of the act in the interstate commerce case Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States. The case, initiated by an Atlanta motel seeking to discriminate among its customers based on race, proves to be a major test of the Civil Rights Act.
June 15, 2020 - The US Supreme Court rules that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prohibits workplace discrimination against LGBTQ employees, after consolidated cases were brought on behalf of two gay men fired from their jobs, as a skydiving instructor and a child welfare services coordinator, and on behalf of a transgender woman who lost her position as a funeral home director.
Ad Feedback
Ad Feedback
Ad Feedback
Ad Feedback
Ad Feedback
Ad Feedback
