Cival Rights Act 1964 :: essays research papers fc

When the Government Stood Up For elegant Rights "All my life Ive been pallid and tired, and now Im just sick and tired of being sick and tired. No one can honestly say Negroes are satisfied. Weve only been patient, that how much more patience can we have?" Mrs. Hamer said these talking to in 1964, a month and a day before the diachronic Civil Rights Act of 1964 would be signed into law by prexy 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 unresisting acceptance. She speaks for black Americans who have been second class citizens in their own mansion 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 heap who led the greatest movement in modern American news report - the civil rights movement. It was a movemen t that would be more than a piece of history, it was a movement that would become a measure of our lives (Shipler 12). When Martin Luther King younger stirred up the conscience of a nation, he gave voice to a long lain dormant morality in America, a voice that the political sympathies 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 content government had declared equality for blacks. The civil rights movement was a compact led by a number of organizations, supported by umteen individuals, to end discrimination and achieve equality for American Blacks (Mooney 776). The forefront of the struggle came during the 1950s and the 1960s when the feeling of oppression intensified and efforts increased to gain access to universe accommodations, increased voting rights, and better educa tional opportunities (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 stubborn that the fourteenth did not protect blacks from violation of civil rights, by individuals.