Civil Rights Act of 1964

Historical Background

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 has its genesis in the civil rights movement that enveloped the nation, particularly the South, in the years following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) desegregating U.S. public elementary schools. That decision produced massive opposition from Whites in the South and racial violence aimed against Blacks and their supporters. Bombings and lynchings in the South were met by massive civil disobedience as hundreds of “Freedom Riders” joined southern Blacks in attempts to register voters and desegregate businesses, public transportation, swimming pools, and all institutions of the segregated South and, later, of the large urban centers of the North. Lacking political clout, Blacks flooded the federal courts with lawsuits to enforce Brown and to utilize Brown to end all forms of racial segregation, including public accommodations. Some of that litigation was successful. However, America's schools overwhelmingly remained segregated.

In August 1963, the civil rights movement, joined by church congregations, women's groups, and labor unions, conducted a massive march on Washington. Through all of this strife, the federal government continued to fund segregated entities throughout the country. A major demand of the protests was an end to this federal support of segregation.

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was the formal entrance of the U.S. Congress into the civil rights struggle that defined the United States in the 1960s. The law had seven titles:

• I.
  Voting rights protections
• II.
  Equal access to public accommodations
• III.
  Authorization for the U.S. Attorney General to initiate school desegregation suits.
• IV.
  The establishment of a federal Community Relations Service to stop racial violence.
• V.
  Extension of the law creating the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights
• VI.
  Prohibiting federal funding to programs that discriminated on the basis of race, color, or national origin
• VII.
  The establishment of a commission on equal employment opportunities

The Black struggle for civil rights spread to other groups, including women, people with disabilities, and language minorities. With respect to language minorities, a demand for an equal educational opportunity was paramount. Segregation had been challenged by the Latino community as far back as the 1940s, with the successful case of Méndez v. Westminster School District (1946) in California. Even when schools were desegregated, however, Latinos, Asians, and other language minorities struggled for culturally appropriate curricula and for comprehensible instruction.

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