Harold Titus's Blog - Posts Tagged "everett-dirksen"
Civil Rights Events -- Voting Rights Act 1965
In 1870 the 15th Amendment was ratified, which provided specifically that the right to vote shall not be denied or abridged on the basis of race, color or previous condition of servitude. This superseded state laws that had directly prohibited black voting. Congress then enacted the Enforcement Act of 1870, which contained criminal penalties for interference with the right to vote, and the Force Act of 1871, which provided for federal election oversight.
As a result, in the former Confederate States, where new black citizens in some cases comprised outright or near majorities of the eligible voting population, hundreds of thousands -- perhaps one million -- recently-freed slaves registered to vote. Black candidates began for the first time to be elected to state, local and federal offices and to play a meaningful role in their governments.
The extension of the franchise to black citizens was strongly resisted. Among others, the Ku Klux Klan, the Knights of the White Camellia, and other terrorist organizations attempted to prevent the 15th Amendment from being enforced by violence and intimidation. (Before 1-2) The withdrawal of federal troops from former Confederate states following the Hayes-Tilden Compromise of 1877 allowed state legislatures to pass discriminatory voting laws that effected disenfranchisement of virtually every black citizen.
Such disfranchising laws included poll taxes, literacy tests, vouchers of "good character," and disqualification for "crimes of moral turpitude." These laws were "color-blind" on their face, but were designed to exclude black citizens disproportionately by allowing white election officials to apply the procedures selectively (Before 3)
Civil rights events in the 1950s and early 1960s eventually galvanized the nation. Congress passed Civil Rights Acts in 1957, 1960, and 1964. None were strong enough to prevent voting discrimination by local officials.
On March 7, 1965, peaceful voting rights protesters in Selma, Alabama were violently attacked by Alabama state police. News cameras filmed the violence in what became known as “Bloody Sunday.” Many Americans and members of Congress began to wonder if existing civil rights laws would ever be properly enforced by the local authorities. The question before Congress was whether the federal government should guarantee the right to vote by assuming the power to register voters. Since qualifications for voting were traditionally set by state and local officials, federal voting rights protection represented a significant change in the constitutional balance of power between the states and the federal government (Congress 1).
Democrats have a 2-1 majority in the Senate, but the southern wing of the party — the "Dixiecrats" — are bitterly opposed to any legislation that will increase the number of Black voters. The inevitable southern filibuster cannot be overcome without substantial Republican support. [Attorney General] Katzenbach negotiates with Senate minority leader Everett Dirksen (R-IL). Then he meets with Senate majority leader Mike Mansfield (D-MT). Soon Katzenbach, Justice Department lawyers, Republican and Democrat Senate leaders, Senate staff, and civil rights leaders are all involved in negotiating a bipartisan voting bill that can effectively end racial voting barriers yet still gain enough Republican support to defeat a southern filibuster.
Though the protests have focused on Black voting rights, Freedom Movement leaders insist that the bill address all forms of vote-related racial bias. Latinos trying to register or vote in Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona and parts of California have long faced discriminatory procedures, intimidation, and economic retaliation; as have Native Americans throughout the West, portions of the Northeast, and Alaska.
Feeling the heat both domestically and internationally, LBJ pushes them to move fast, the voting rights issue is diverting attention from his "Great Society" legislation and undermining his Vietnam strategy. He now wants a bill and he wants it now. Katzenbach is ordered to come up with something the President can present to Congress on the weekend of March 13-14, just days away. By Friday the 12th, the negotiators have agreed that the bill must include some provision for suspending the so-called "literacy tests" and also federal authority to register voters in counties that continue to systematically deny voting rights. But there is no agreement on the formulas or thresholds that would trigger such "drastic" action. …
In the South, Blacks who attempt to exercise their rights as citizens face terrorism by white racists. …
A general clause outlawing threats and intimidation is added to the draft bill. But "Law and order" Republicans (and Democrats) adamantly oppose any kind of specific restriction on police actions, or any sort of oversight of local police behavior on the part of Washington. Movement activists recall the criticisms that John Lewis made of the Civil Rights Act of 1964: "... there's nothing to protect the young children and old women who must face police dogs and fire hoses in the South while they engage in peaceful demonstration. In its present form this bill will not protect the citizens of Danville, Virginia, who must live in constant fear of a police state. It will not protect the hundreds and thousands of people that have been arrested on trumped charges." Their pleas for police-specific remedies are ignored.
Economic retaliation — often organized by the local White Citizens Council — is another method of suppressing voting rights. … But pro-business Republicans and Democrats oppose legislation that might grant any arm of government authority to "intrude" on the "business decisions" of private enterprise or to investigate or regulate the motivations behind individual business actions. A bill that contains any such restrictions on "free enterprise" cannot possibly pass. Economic barriers to voting are not included in the draft bill.
With specific restrictions on police conduct and economic retaliation off the table, poll taxes emerge as the main bone of contention. …
In 1964, the 24th Amendment outlawed poll taxes in elections for federal offices, but all southern states except Maryland still retain poll taxes for state and local elections. (Vermont is the only non-southern state with a poll tax.) Senator Ted Kennedy proposes an amendment to eliminate poll taxes in all elections and that is added to the draft. Conservatives object. In their view, a state's right to levy taxes must be held sacrosanct from federal "meddling." …
In a televised address to the nation on March 15th, President Johnson presents the proposed Voting Rights Act (VRA) to a joint session of Congress. Many southern congressmen boycott the session. Johnson condemns the denial of fundamental rights based on race, and the nation's failure of to live up to the promise of its creed. "There is no Negro problem, there is only an American problem, and we are met here tonight as Americans ... to solve that problem. ... it is not just Negroes, but really it's all of us who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And—we—shall—overcome."
Dirksen and Mansfield jointly submit the Voting Rights Act to the Senate on March 18. It goes to the Judiciary Committee for consideration, with an April 9 deadline. Civil Rights leaders and Congressional liberals want a stronger bill, conservatives want a weaker one. Shortly before midnight on April 9, the Judiciary Committee sends the bill to the full Senate. In some respects, the intense lobbying of liberals has made it stronger than the original Dirksen-Mansfield draft — but it's still weaker than what Freedom Movement leaders and activists had hoped for.
Senate debate on the VRA begins on April 22. The southern Dixiecrats argue that it's an unconstitutional intrusion on the right of states to impose their own voting procedures and requirements. Their filibuster takes the form of a flood of weakening amendments, each of which have to be debated and voted on separately. The battle continues for weeks. The filibuster can only be broken by passing a cloture motion which requires at least 20 Republican votes to pass. But conservative Republicans oppose expansion of federal authority into areas traditionally reserved to the states. To win over Republicans, the poll tax ban is watered down so that it only applies to six states: Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. The states of Florida, North Carolina, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky and Texas are exempted. (In 1972, Texas is added back in during the Nixon administration.) The cloture vote takes place on May 25th. It passes 70-30.
The next day the Senate passes the full bill by a vote of 77-19.
The House then becomes the focus, and again poll taxes emerge as the critical issue. Liberals from districts with large numbers of Black and Jewish voters don't want to be seen as laggards on civil rights, so they fight for a total ban on all poll taxes — everywhere. …
By a vote of 333-85 on July 9, the House passes a Voting Rights Act containing a complete ban on all poll taxes. Because the Senate and House versions of the bill don't match, it's sent to a conference committee to resolve the differences. The House negotiators refuse to budge — repeal all poll taxes now! The Senate negotiators refuse to budge — the Senate won't accept a bill with a total ban. Deadlock.
Impatient at the delay, President Johnson forges a compromise and rams it through. Accept the Senate's poll tax language, but add a "declaration" that poll taxes abridge the right to vote, a directive ordering the Attorney General to immediately move against poll taxes in federal court, and instructions that the courts are to expedite hearing the cases at "the earliest practical dates." He asks Dr. King to support the compromise. With hundreds of SCLC summer volunteers in six southern states waiting for the Act to become law, King assures the House negotiators that the new language is acceptable. They come to agreement on July 28. The final bill passes the House 328-74 on August 3rd, it passes the Senate 72-18 on August 4, and is signed into law on August 6th with King, Rosa Parks, Bayard Rustin, and other civil rights leaders in attendance.
The Justice Department immediately files suit against poll taxes in four states. Eight months later, the Supreme Court rules in Harper v Virginia Board of Elections that poll taxes in state and local elections are unconstitutional (Passage 5-12).
“This law covers many pages,” Johnson said before signing the bill, “but the heart of the act is plain. Wherever, by clear and objective standards, States and counties are using regulations, or laws, or tests to deny the right to vote, then they will be struck down” (Voting Rights – Stanford 2).
Section 2, which closely followed the language of the 15th amendment, applied a nationwide prohibition of the denial or abridgment of the right to vote on account of race or color.
Section 5 of the act required covered jurisdictions to obtain "preclearance" from either the District Court for the District of Columbia or the U.S. Attorney General for any new voting practices and procedures (Voting 1965 1-2). The Justice Department could now send examiners to any state or county where a literacy test or a similar deterrent to black registration had been in effect as of the 1964 presidential election and where turnout or registration for that election had fallen below 50% of the voting age population (Cobb 1-2).
Stated more succinctly, the legislation outlawed literacy tests and provided for the appointment of Federal examiners (with the power to register qualified citizens to vote) in certain jurisdictions with a history of voting discrimination. In addition, these jurisdictions could not change voting practices or procedures without "preclearance" from either the U.S. Attorney General or the District Court for Washington, DC. This act shifted the power to register voters from state and local officials to the federal government (Congress 2).
Initial implementation of the VRA falls far short of Freedom Movement hopes. Many county registrars continue to use now-illegal schemes and procedures to deny Black voting rights. Klan terrorism and Citizens Council economic retaliation also continue in many areas. Federal enforcement of the Act's criminal provisions is weak and often half-hearted. Black voters and civil rights workers see little immediate change (Passage 13).
Nevertheless, it was only eight days after President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act on Aug. 6 of 1965 that federal voting examiners speedily dispatched to Selma, Ala., proceeded in a single day to register 381 new black voters, more than had managed to register in Dallas County over the last 65 years. Local Sheriff Jim Clark’s hair-trigger resort to physical violence against would-be black registrants had left little doubt of his determination that such a day would never come for his town. Yet, ironically, he had actually helped to assure that it did, when, back in March of that year, he led the charge in the savage “Bloody Sunday” beating and maiming of voting-rights marchers, an event that had sparked national outrage and spurred demands for stronger federal intervention. By November, the county had 8,000 new black voters—and, not coincidentally, after the next May’s primary elections it would have a new sheriff as well, leaving Jim Clark to try his hand at selling mobile homes (Cobb 1).
Initially, the voting rights act’s provisions applied to every Deep South state except Florida, plus Virginia and some 40 counties in North Carolina. And they worked, nowhere more obviously than in Mississippi, where the percentage of eligible black voters registered ballooned from 7% in 1964 to 67% just five years later (Cobb 2).
By the end of 1965, a quarter of a million new black voters had been registered [nationally], one-third by Federal examiners. By the end of 1966, only 4 out of the 13 southern states had fewer than 50 percent of African Americans registered to vote (Voting 1965 4).
As the number of African American voters increased, so did the number of African American elected officials. In the mid-1960s there were about 70 African American elected officials in the South, but by the turn of the 21st century there were some 5,000, and the number of African American members of the U.S. Congress had increased from 6 to about 40 (Voting Rights – Encyclo. 5).
Because the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was the most significant statutory change in the relationship between the Federal and state governments in the area of voting since the Reconstruction period following the Civil War, it was immediately challenged in the courts. Between 1965 and 1969, the Supreme Court issued several key decisions upholding the constitutionality of Section 5 and affirming the broad range of voting practices for which preclearance was required (Voting 1965 3-4).
Only 12 years ago, in 2006, a unanimous Senate and a nearly unanimous House of Representatives re-authorized Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, the crucial provision that prevented jurisdictions with a history of discriminatory voting practices from implementing any changes in voting without federal preclearance.
Nevertheless, a scant seven years later, a deeply divided Supreme Court handed down a decision that, in the words of Congressman John Lewis, "put a dagger in the heart of the Voting Rights Act of 1965." Shelby County v. Holder overturned Section 5. This left Section 2 as the Voting Rights Act's sole remaining prohibition of racial discrimination in voting. But since January 20, 2017, the DOJ has not filed a single suit under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (Clarke and Rosenberg 3-4).
As a result of that case [Shelby County v. Holder] and a prior one legalizing so-called “Voter ID” laws, along with other anti-voter moves such as shutting polling places in African-American areas, voter intimidation by so-called Republican “observers,” curtailed balloting hours and high-cost registration requirements, lawmakers may have to pass a Voting Rights Act all over again (Gruenberg 2-3).
Works cited:
“Before the Voting Rights Act.” The United States Department of Justice. Web. https://www.justice.gov/crt/introduct...
Clarke, Kristen and Rosenberg, Ezra. “Trump Administration Has Voting Rights Act on Life Support.” CNN. August 6, 2018. Web. https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/06/opinio...
Cobb, James C. “The Voting Rights Act at 50: How It Changed the World.” Time, August 6, 2015. Web. http://time.com/3985479/voting-rights...
“Congress and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.” The Center for Legislative Archives. Web. https://www.archives.gov/legislative/...
Gruenberg, Mark. “Voting Rights Act of 1965 May Have to Be Passed Again.” People’s World. Web. https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/...
“Passage of the Voting Rights Act (Mar-Aug).” Civil Rights Movement History: 1965. Web. https://www.crmvet.org/tim/tim65b.htm...
“Voting Rights Act of 1965.” Stanford: The Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute. Web. https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/en...
“Voting Rights Act (1965).” Our Documents. Web. https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?...
“The Voting Rights Act.” Encyclopedia Britannica. Web. https://www.britannica.com/event/Voti...
As a result, in the former Confederate States, where new black citizens in some cases comprised outright or near majorities of the eligible voting population, hundreds of thousands -- perhaps one million -- recently-freed slaves registered to vote. Black candidates began for the first time to be elected to state, local and federal offices and to play a meaningful role in their governments.
The extension of the franchise to black citizens was strongly resisted. Among others, the Ku Klux Klan, the Knights of the White Camellia, and other terrorist organizations attempted to prevent the 15th Amendment from being enforced by violence and intimidation. (Before 1-2) The withdrawal of federal troops from former Confederate states following the Hayes-Tilden Compromise of 1877 allowed state legislatures to pass discriminatory voting laws that effected disenfranchisement of virtually every black citizen.
Such disfranchising laws included poll taxes, literacy tests, vouchers of "good character," and disqualification for "crimes of moral turpitude." These laws were "color-blind" on their face, but were designed to exclude black citizens disproportionately by allowing white election officials to apply the procedures selectively (Before 3)
Civil rights events in the 1950s and early 1960s eventually galvanized the nation. Congress passed Civil Rights Acts in 1957, 1960, and 1964. None were strong enough to prevent voting discrimination by local officials.
On March 7, 1965, peaceful voting rights protesters in Selma, Alabama were violently attacked by Alabama state police. News cameras filmed the violence in what became known as “Bloody Sunday.” Many Americans and members of Congress began to wonder if existing civil rights laws would ever be properly enforced by the local authorities. The question before Congress was whether the federal government should guarantee the right to vote by assuming the power to register voters. Since qualifications for voting were traditionally set by state and local officials, federal voting rights protection represented a significant change in the constitutional balance of power between the states and the federal government (Congress 1).
Democrats have a 2-1 majority in the Senate, but the southern wing of the party — the "Dixiecrats" — are bitterly opposed to any legislation that will increase the number of Black voters. The inevitable southern filibuster cannot be overcome without substantial Republican support. [Attorney General] Katzenbach negotiates with Senate minority leader Everett Dirksen (R-IL). Then he meets with Senate majority leader Mike Mansfield (D-MT). Soon Katzenbach, Justice Department lawyers, Republican and Democrat Senate leaders, Senate staff, and civil rights leaders are all involved in negotiating a bipartisan voting bill that can effectively end racial voting barriers yet still gain enough Republican support to defeat a southern filibuster.
Though the protests have focused on Black voting rights, Freedom Movement leaders insist that the bill address all forms of vote-related racial bias. Latinos trying to register or vote in Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona and parts of California have long faced discriminatory procedures, intimidation, and economic retaliation; as have Native Americans throughout the West, portions of the Northeast, and Alaska.
Feeling the heat both domestically and internationally, LBJ pushes them to move fast, the voting rights issue is diverting attention from his "Great Society" legislation and undermining his Vietnam strategy. He now wants a bill and he wants it now. Katzenbach is ordered to come up with something the President can present to Congress on the weekend of March 13-14, just days away. By Friday the 12th, the negotiators have agreed that the bill must include some provision for suspending the so-called "literacy tests" and also federal authority to register voters in counties that continue to systematically deny voting rights. But there is no agreement on the formulas or thresholds that would trigger such "drastic" action. …
In the South, Blacks who attempt to exercise their rights as citizens face terrorism by white racists. …
A general clause outlawing threats and intimidation is added to the draft bill. But "Law and order" Republicans (and Democrats) adamantly oppose any kind of specific restriction on police actions, or any sort of oversight of local police behavior on the part of Washington. Movement activists recall the criticisms that John Lewis made of the Civil Rights Act of 1964: "... there's nothing to protect the young children and old women who must face police dogs and fire hoses in the South while they engage in peaceful demonstration. In its present form this bill will not protect the citizens of Danville, Virginia, who must live in constant fear of a police state. It will not protect the hundreds and thousands of people that have been arrested on trumped charges." Their pleas for police-specific remedies are ignored.
Economic retaliation — often organized by the local White Citizens Council — is another method of suppressing voting rights. … But pro-business Republicans and Democrats oppose legislation that might grant any arm of government authority to "intrude" on the "business decisions" of private enterprise or to investigate or regulate the motivations behind individual business actions. A bill that contains any such restrictions on "free enterprise" cannot possibly pass. Economic barriers to voting are not included in the draft bill.
With specific restrictions on police conduct and economic retaliation off the table, poll taxes emerge as the main bone of contention. …
In 1964, the 24th Amendment outlawed poll taxes in elections for federal offices, but all southern states except Maryland still retain poll taxes for state and local elections. (Vermont is the only non-southern state with a poll tax.) Senator Ted Kennedy proposes an amendment to eliminate poll taxes in all elections and that is added to the draft. Conservatives object. In their view, a state's right to levy taxes must be held sacrosanct from federal "meddling." …
In a televised address to the nation on March 15th, President Johnson presents the proposed Voting Rights Act (VRA) to a joint session of Congress. Many southern congressmen boycott the session. Johnson condemns the denial of fundamental rights based on race, and the nation's failure of to live up to the promise of its creed. "There is no Negro problem, there is only an American problem, and we are met here tonight as Americans ... to solve that problem. ... it is not just Negroes, but really it's all of us who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And—we—shall—overcome."
Dirksen and Mansfield jointly submit the Voting Rights Act to the Senate on March 18. It goes to the Judiciary Committee for consideration, with an April 9 deadline. Civil Rights leaders and Congressional liberals want a stronger bill, conservatives want a weaker one. Shortly before midnight on April 9, the Judiciary Committee sends the bill to the full Senate. In some respects, the intense lobbying of liberals has made it stronger than the original Dirksen-Mansfield draft — but it's still weaker than what Freedom Movement leaders and activists had hoped for.
Senate debate on the VRA begins on April 22. The southern Dixiecrats argue that it's an unconstitutional intrusion on the right of states to impose their own voting procedures and requirements. Their filibuster takes the form of a flood of weakening amendments, each of which have to be debated and voted on separately. The battle continues for weeks. The filibuster can only be broken by passing a cloture motion which requires at least 20 Republican votes to pass. But conservative Republicans oppose expansion of federal authority into areas traditionally reserved to the states. To win over Republicans, the poll tax ban is watered down so that it only applies to six states: Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. The states of Florida, North Carolina, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky and Texas are exempted. (In 1972, Texas is added back in during the Nixon administration.) The cloture vote takes place on May 25th. It passes 70-30.
The next day the Senate passes the full bill by a vote of 77-19.
The House then becomes the focus, and again poll taxes emerge as the critical issue. Liberals from districts with large numbers of Black and Jewish voters don't want to be seen as laggards on civil rights, so they fight for a total ban on all poll taxes — everywhere. …
By a vote of 333-85 on July 9, the House passes a Voting Rights Act containing a complete ban on all poll taxes. Because the Senate and House versions of the bill don't match, it's sent to a conference committee to resolve the differences. The House negotiators refuse to budge — repeal all poll taxes now! The Senate negotiators refuse to budge — the Senate won't accept a bill with a total ban. Deadlock.
Impatient at the delay, President Johnson forges a compromise and rams it through. Accept the Senate's poll tax language, but add a "declaration" that poll taxes abridge the right to vote, a directive ordering the Attorney General to immediately move against poll taxes in federal court, and instructions that the courts are to expedite hearing the cases at "the earliest practical dates." He asks Dr. King to support the compromise. With hundreds of SCLC summer volunteers in six southern states waiting for the Act to become law, King assures the House negotiators that the new language is acceptable. They come to agreement on July 28. The final bill passes the House 328-74 on August 3rd, it passes the Senate 72-18 on August 4, and is signed into law on August 6th with King, Rosa Parks, Bayard Rustin, and other civil rights leaders in attendance.
The Justice Department immediately files suit against poll taxes in four states. Eight months later, the Supreme Court rules in Harper v Virginia Board of Elections that poll taxes in state and local elections are unconstitutional (Passage 5-12).
“This law covers many pages,” Johnson said before signing the bill, “but the heart of the act is plain. Wherever, by clear and objective standards, States and counties are using regulations, or laws, or tests to deny the right to vote, then they will be struck down” (Voting Rights – Stanford 2).
Section 2, which closely followed the language of the 15th amendment, applied a nationwide prohibition of the denial or abridgment of the right to vote on account of race or color.
Section 5 of the act required covered jurisdictions to obtain "preclearance" from either the District Court for the District of Columbia or the U.S. Attorney General for any new voting practices and procedures (Voting 1965 1-2). The Justice Department could now send examiners to any state or county where a literacy test or a similar deterrent to black registration had been in effect as of the 1964 presidential election and where turnout or registration for that election had fallen below 50% of the voting age population (Cobb 1-2).
Stated more succinctly, the legislation outlawed literacy tests and provided for the appointment of Federal examiners (with the power to register qualified citizens to vote) in certain jurisdictions with a history of voting discrimination. In addition, these jurisdictions could not change voting practices or procedures without "preclearance" from either the U.S. Attorney General or the District Court for Washington, DC. This act shifted the power to register voters from state and local officials to the federal government (Congress 2).
Initial implementation of the VRA falls far short of Freedom Movement hopes. Many county registrars continue to use now-illegal schemes and procedures to deny Black voting rights. Klan terrorism and Citizens Council economic retaliation also continue in many areas. Federal enforcement of the Act's criminal provisions is weak and often half-hearted. Black voters and civil rights workers see little immediate change (Passage 13).
Nevertheless, it was only eight days after President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act on Aug. 6 of 1965 that federal voting examiners speedily dispatched to Selma, Ala., proceeded in a single day to register 381 new black voters, more than had managed to register in Dallas County over the last 65 years. Local Sheriff Jim Clark’s hair-trigger resort to physical violence against would-be black registrants had left little doubt of his determination that such a day would never come for his town. Yet, ironically, he had actually helped to assure that it did, when, back in March of that year, he led the charge in the savage “Bloody Sunday” beating and maiming of voting-rights marchers, an event that had sparked national outrage and spurred demands for stronger federal intervention. By November, the county had 8,000 new black voters—and, not coincidentally, after the next May’s primary elections it would have a new sheriff as well, leaving Jim Clark to try his hand at selling mobile homes (Cobb 1).
Initially, the voting rights act’s provisions applied to every Deep South state except Florida, plus Virginia and some 40 counties in North Carolina. And they worked, nowhere more obviously than in Mississippi, where the percentage of eligible black voters registered ballooned from 7% in 1964 to 67% just five years later (Cobb 2).
By the end of 1965, a quarter of a million new black voters had been registered [nationally], one-third by Federal examiners. By the end of 1966, only 4 out of the 13 southern states had fewer than 50 percent of African Americans registered to vote (Voting 1965 4).
As the number of African American voters increased, so did the number of African American elected officials. In the mid-1960s there were about 70 African American elected officials in the South, but by the turn of the 21st century there were some 5,000, and the number of African American members of the U.S. Congress had increased from 6 to about 40 (Voting Rights – Encyclo. 5).
Because the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was the most significant statutory change in the relationship between the Federal and state governments in the area of voting since the Reconstruction period following the Civil War, it was immediately challenged in the courts. Between 1965 and 1969, the Supreme Court issued several key decisions upholding the constitutionality of Section 5 and affirming the broad range of voting practices for which preclearance was required (Voting 1965 3-4).
Only 12 years ago, in 2006, a unanimous Senate and a nearly unanimous House of Representatives re-authorized Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, the crucial provision that prevented jurisdictions with a history of discriminatory voting practices from implementing any changes in voting without federal preclearance.
Nevertheless, a scant seven years later, a deeply divided Supreme Court handed down a decision that, in the words of Congressman John Lewis, "put a dagger in the heart of the Voting Rights Act of 1965." Shelby County v. Holder overturned Section 5. This left Section 2 as the Voting Rights Act's sole remaining prohibition of racial discrimination in voting. But since January 20, 2017, the DOJ has not filed a single suit under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (Clarke and Rosenberg 3-4).
As a result of that case [Shelby County v. Holder] and a prior one legalizing so-called “Voter ID” laws, along with other anti-voter moves such as shutting polling places in African-American areas, voter intimidation by so-called Republican “observers,” curtailed balloting hours and high-cost registration requirements, lawmakers may have to pass a Voting Rights Act all over again (Gruenberg 2-3).
Works cited:
“Before the Voting Rights Act.” The United States Department of Justice. Web. https://www.justice.gov/crt/introduct...
Clarke, Kristen and Rosenberg, Ezra. “Trump Administration Has Voting Rights Act on Life Support.” CNN. August 6, 2018. Web. https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/06/opinio...
Cobb, James C. “The Voting Rights Act at 50: How It Changed the World.” Time, August 6, 2015. Web. http://time.com/3985479/voting-rights...
“Congress and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.” The Center for Legislative Archives. Web. https://www.archives.gov/legislative/...
Gruenberg, Mark. “Voting Rights Act of 1965 May Have to Be Passed Again.” People’s World. Web. https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/...
“Passage of the Voting Rights Act (Mar-Aug).” Civil Rights Movement History: 1965. Web. https://www.crmvet.org/tim/tim65b.htm...
“Voting Rights Act of 1965.” Stanford: The Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute. Web. https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/en...
“Voting Rights Act (1965).” Our Documents. Web. https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?...
“The Voting Rights Act.” Encyclopedia Britannica. Web. https://www.britannica.com/event/Voti...
Civil Rights Events -- 1966 Civil Rights Bill Defeated
… the mood of the nation in 1966 remained essentially one of sympathy toward the desire of Negroes to improve their lives, tempered by growing concern at the violence fostered by a few spokesmen and slum-dwellers. Negro and white leaders, including the President, unqualifiedly condemned the violence, but the lawlessness of a relatively few thousand Negro rioters generated resentment in a large portion of the nation.
In the South, resentment built up against the efforts of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare to enforce the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by requiring schools and hospitals to desegregate. In the North, resentment built up against efforts of civil rights leaders to bus children to different school districts in order to break down “de facto” segregation and against their efforts to break down the pattern of segregated housing generally. Those activities produced counter-pressures in the white community and resulted in a discernible stiffening of resistance to rapid change. Then, too, the year lacked the kinds of events–a march on Washington, police clubbing Negro marchers to the ground before nationwide television, nightrider slayings, the bombing and burning of churches, a massive march for voting rights–which had galvanized the nation into action in 1964 and 1965 (1966 3).
A Gallup Poll in 1966 reveals that nationwide more than half of all whites think that the Freedom Movement and President Johnson are forcing racial integration too fast —particularly regarding housing and schools. This is the highest anti-Movement percentage since early 1962. A Louis Harris Poll is even more negative, claiming that 75% of whites believe Blacks are going too far and going too fast, compared with 50% in 1964. "Where housing is concerned," observes social psychologist Thomas Pettigre, "much of the subtlety which clothes racial prejudice in the North is lost."
But Movement leaders are pushing for critical new legislation in 1966, and LBJ is determined to pass a new bill. Late in 1965, the U.S. Civil Rights Commission issues a report on biased law enforcement in the South. Blacks still face police repression and incarcerations, terrorist murders, beatings, bombings, and rapes for asserting their basic human rights. As the law now stands, racists accused of criminal violence against Black voters are tried under state laws in biased state courts. The commission recommends new federal laws protecting voters and civil rights workers — something long sought in previous acts, but not won. This is the most urgent necessity.
All-white, all-male juries are another problem. Most southern states use various schemes and tactics to ensure all-white juries — either across the board or in cases where race is a factor. Many states, including Alabama, Mississippi & South Carolina forbid women from serving on juries while others such as Florida, Louisiana & New Hampshire require that women volunteer for jury service rather than being summoned as is the case with men. Other states have other jury selection inequalities; New York for example, requires all jurors to be property-owners, if you don't own real estate you can't serve on a jury. President Johnson announces that provisions barring discrimination in jury selection will also be included in the new bill.
A section authorizing the Attorney General to initiate desegregation suits is then added to strengthen the Civil Rights Act of 1964. (Under the 1964 law, the Justice Department could not intervene until someone filed a formal complaint and asked for assistance. But anyone who did that faced retaliation from the local sheriff, Ku Klux Klan, and White Citizen Council.)
Civil rights leaders also want action against discrimination in housing. But they know that including open-housing legislation in the bill will be hugely controversial and could well doom the entire package. Rather than risk defeat of the crucial voter-protection and jury-reform provisions, they urge Johnson to expand coverage of Kennedy's Executive Order 11063 which prohibited discrimination in federally-assisted housing. Kennedy's order covered about 3% of total housing units, but LBJ can use his executive power to significantly expand it without going through Congress — or risking the new bill.
Johnson disregards their advice. He believes he has the political power to enact whatever legislation he desires, and he is certain he knows best. In his State of the Union Message on January 12, 1966, he adds Fair Housing legislation to the new bill. Republican Senator Everett Dirksen (R-IL) — whose support was crucial to passage of both the Civil Rights Act in '64 and the Voting Rights Act in '65 — immediately declares adamant opposition to open housing legislation as an unconstitutional limitation on the sacred rights of private property.
Identical bills are introduced in the Senate and House. Led by Emanuel Celler (D-NY), the House acts first, holding hearings in May of 1966. The bill as a whole is named "Civil Rights Act of 1966," but its housing provisions are separately named the "Fair Housing Act" (FHA). Opposition to the FHA is fierce both North and South. And Southern Democrats oppose all the other provisions as well. Complex political battles are waged in public and behind the scenes the various sides maneuver against each other. (Civil 1-4).
Civil rights leaders desired a fair-housing executive order but Johnson’s legal aides doubted its constitutionality. Many administration officials felt housing legislation was unwise at the time because it would not pass due to the social unrest in urban areas. Attorney General Katzenbach was not confident in its passage because there were many in Congress that felt they would lose their seats if they voted for open housing. (Miles 108).
The sections (titles of the initial bill) were as follows.
Titles I and II … sought to guarantee non-discriminatory selection of federal and state jurors, respectively. …
Title III … authorized the Attorney General to initiate desegregation suits with regard to public schools and accommodations. …
Title IV. The open housing proposal came as a genuine surprise to Congress. No President in recent years had proposed such a law (1966 12).
The Administration's Title IV, as introduced, prohibited discrimination in the sale or rental of all housing.
Title V. A law protecting civil rights workers was one urgently sought by civil rights advocates in late 1965 and early 1966. It was perhaps the one provision they considered essential for enactment in 1966. While efforts to pass a federal anti-lynching law dated back to the 1930s, a proposal for a general civil rights law to protect security of the person first appeared in the Democratic party platform of 1948. The Civil Rights Commission as early as 1961 and as late as its Nov. 14, 1965, report urged enactment of such a statute. No Administration proposed such a law until 1966, however (1966 14).
The chief opponent to the open housing title was the real estate industry. The National Association of Real Estate Boards mobilized a thousand local real estate boards to attack the housing clause. Estimates indicated that congressional mail was running one hundred to one against open housing. Arthur Mohl of the Illinois Association of Real Estate Brokers testified against the bill in front of the House Judiciary Committee and said Title IV would not have positive effects on the ghetto. He argued that New York City had an open housing law that enabled riots and a sixty-five percent increase in substandard housing over a ten-year period, while Chicago did not have an open housing law, had no major riots, and experienced a thirty-three percent reduction in substandard housing. He concluded, “We submit that any law which attempts to regulate a personal relationship between two individual citizens, where the public interest is not involved, is un-American and un-democratic. (Miles 112-113).
Lobbying for and against the bill is intense. The NAACP, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) and progressives within the AFL-CIO, lobby hard for the bill. The National Association of Real Estate Boards (NAREB) and banking lobbyists fight furiously against the housing provisions, while law enforcement organizations and southern segregationists oppose ending jury discrimination or creating new laws to protect civil rights "troublemakers."
House floor debate begins on July 25. Conservative Republicans reject restrictions or limitations of any kind on property rights. GOP moderates disagree. Southern Democrats continue their traditional opposition to any legislation that favors Blacks. Northern Democrats, particularly those whose reelection chances rely on coalitions of labor, Blacks, and "ethnic-whites," are split. Some fear that open-housing legislation will transform working-class whites into Republicans and they therefore waffle, trying to please everyone while offending no one. Others hold fast in support of the bill.
Some 77 different amendments are fought out on the House floor. Of the accepted amendments, some weaken the bill, a few strengthen it.
Republicans and Southern Democrats join together to win a close 214-201 vote gutting the Justice Department's ability to file lawsuits against segregated schools and public accommodations by requiring a written complaint of discrimination by victims. Southern Blacks will still have to expose themselves to economic and physical retaliation from sheriffs, Klan, and Citizens Councils before the federal government is allowed to bestir itself to enforce the Constitution and the law (Civil 5).
On July 13 The Housing and Urban Development Department (HUD) declared that there were 60 million existing housing units in the nation. Of those, 34.9 million were owner-occupied one-family homes, 1,520,000 were units in owner-occupied two-family houses and another 509,000 were units in owner-occupied three- and four-family houses, the Department said. Under terms of Title IV as amended by the House, all of those units–totaling 36,933,000–would be exempt from the law, leaving only about 23 million covered by it. For new housing, however, the picture was different; the House-passed bill exempted only the first two housing transactions by any individual or business in any 12-month period, and major housing developers had many more transactions per year than that. Of the total of about 1.5 million new housing units on which construction was started each year, the vast bulk was built by developers and builders for sale or rental. The initial sales or rentals by the developers would be covered by the bill, but if a family bought a house, subsequent resale of the house would be exempt (1966 17).
By a vote of 237-176, an amendment is added to the Fair Housing Act allowing real estate brokers to discriminate against nonwhites if that's what the property-owner wants.
Another amendment is added allowing brokers and developers to racially discriminate in two transactions per year.
Progressive members of Congress propose an amendment to prohibit gender-discrimination in housing. It's defeated (Civil 5-6).
Violence erupted in many cities across the nation during the summer; it generally took the form of crowds of Negroes roaming the streets, hurling bottles and other missiles and taunting police. Rioting broke out between July 12 and 20 in Negro sections of Chicago, Cleveland, Jacksonville, Fla., New York City and South Bend, Ind. It was at its worst in Chicago and Cleveland, where the National Guard was called out and where two persons were killed in each city. Riots subsequently broke out in Atlanta, Ga., which had a history of stable race relations, and in San Francisco. In many instances, the crowds chanted “black power” and “burn, baby, burn” (1966 8).
Believing that the Black urban uprisings now spreading across the nation are caused by "outside agitators" and fiery speeches by militants like Stokely Carmichael and H. Rap Brown, a huge majority in the House add an "anti-riot" amendment making it a federal felony to cross state lines to engage in violence, looting, or arson, or inciting or encouraging others to do so.
On the positive side, an amendment prohibiting discrimination on the basis of the number or age of children is added, as is an anti-blockbusting amendment.
("Blockbusting" is the practice of deliberately inciting racist fear among whites immediately after a nonwhite moves into a neighborhood so that white owners will sell their homes at panic prices to industry speculators who then resell the properties to Blacks and Latinos at a tidy profit.)
In the end, the House bill as amended, bars segregation and discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin and the number or age of children in the sale or rental of roughly 38% of existing housing. (Johnson's original proposal barred discrimination in all housing.) However, for new housing (most of which is built by developers), the great bulk of initial sales or rentals are covered by the bill — yet most subsequent sales or rentals by individual owners are not covered.
On August 9, the House passes the amended bill by a roll-call vote of 259-157.
…
Meanwhile, the Senate Judiciary Committee is also considering LBJ's proposed bill. Subcommittee Chairman Sam Ervin (D-NC), a determined southern segregationist, opposes just about everything in it. He's in no hurry to report it out of his committee — ever.
Senator Philip Hart (D-MI) is the bill's floor leader. In an effort to circumvent Ervin's obstruction, he and Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield (D-MT) attempt a parliamentary maneuver to place the House bill as passed directly on the Senate floor for debate and vote. Opponents filibuster their motion. For 12 days, from September 7 to 19, the Senate debates what is technically a procedural motion — but is in fact the pros and cons of the House bill itself. If the motion passes, the bill will inevitably pass, if it fails, the bill dies (Civil 6-8).
The tool used to defeat a Senate filibuster is called cloture. A minimum of two-thirds of the entire membership of the Senate is required to close a filibuster debate.
By now,… the fervor President Johnson expressed back in January for new civil rights legislation has dramatically waned. He and Democratic Party leaders have been shocked by the ferocious opposition of northern whites to residential integration, most visibly by white-ethnics in Chicago attacking Dr. King's open housing marches. The mid-term elections are now just two months away and Republicans are making gains by whipping-up the "white backlash" vote. LBJ's first priority is maintaining political support for his war in Vietnam, and as he would later write in his memoirs, "Open housing had become a Democratic liability." Administration efforts to round up votes for breaking the filibuster are feeble, half-hearted, and ineffective.
Johnson's abdication leaves Senator [Everett] Dirksen (R-IL) in the driver's seat (Civil 9).
Dirksen was critical in delivering the Republican votes necessary to pass the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968 as well as the Voting Rights Act of 1965. However, … Dirksen was a fundamental conservative that abided by the Constitution and the Supreme Court … (Miles 87).
If he were to support the bill, he'd bring along enough Republicans to end the filibuster. But he opposes it. First, because of the fair housing provisions which, in his view, are an unconstitutional assault on private property rights. And second, upholding "law and order" at all costs is the bedrock foundation of his political creed; ending racial and gender discrimination in jury selection might make it harder to convict and jail those accused of crimes. "For all practical purposes, the civil rights bill is dead," he tells reporters.
On September 14, and then again on the 19th, supporters in the Senate try to break the filibuster. They need 66 votes. They don't get them. The closest they come is 54 "Aye" vs 42 "Nay" — a majority, but not a two-thirds majority.
Senator James Eastland (D-MS), an ardent segregationist, crows, "The civil rights advocates who hope to force an interracial society have been completely routed. The old-time coalition of Southern Democrats and Republicans were united and effective. ... [Soon] we can start the fight to repeal those vicious measures," (meaning the 1964 Civil Rights and 1965 Voting Rights Acts).
Representative Emanuel Celler (D-NY) tells reporters that it failed because Republicans were searching for votes in the South. "It is a tragic thing that the majority of the [Republican] party which claims the heritage of the Great Emancipator, Abraham Lincoln, should join in the familiar 'Southern strategy'" (Civil 9-11).
On… Sept. 19, knowing the game was up, Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield (D Mont.) moved to adjourn the Senate and thus to kill the bill.
Defeat of the Act was a stunning setback for the Administration of President Johnson and for the civil rights movement. It marked a signal change in the attitude of the same Congress which had passed the historic Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. … said the Senate vote “surely heralds darker days for this social era of discontent” (1966 1-2).
Works cited:
“1966 Civil Rights Act Dies in Senate.” CQ Almanac 1966. Web. https://library.cqpress.com/cqalmanac...
“Civil Rights Act of 1966 Killed by Senate Fillibuster (Sept).” Civil Rights Movement History 1966 (July-December) Web. https://www.crmvet.org/tim/tim66b.htm...
Miles, Darren. “The Art of the Possible: Everett Dirksen’s Role in Civil Rights Legislation of the 1950s and 1960s.” Western Illinois Historical Review. Vol. One, Spring 2009. Web. http://www.wiu.edu/cas/history/wihr/p...
In the South, resentment built up against the efforts of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare to enforce the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by requiring schools and hospitals to desegregate. In the North, resentment built up against efforts of civil rights leaders to bus children to different school districts in order to break down “de facto” segregation and against their efforts to break down the pattern of segregated housing generally. Those activities produced counter-pressures in the white community and resulted in a discernible stiffening of resistance to rapid change. Then, too, the year lacked the kinds of events–a march on Washington, police clubbing Negro marchers to the ground before nationwide television, nightrider slayings, the bombing and burning of churches, a massive march for voting rights–which had galvanized the nation into action in 1964 and 1965 (1966 3).
A Gallup Poll in 1966 reveals that nationwide more than half of all whites think that the Freedom Movement and President Johnson are forcing racial integration too fast —particularly regarding housing and schools. This is the highest anti-Movement percentage since early 1962. A Louis Harris Poll is even more negative, claiming that 75% of whites believe Blacks are going too far and going too fast, compared with 50% in 1964. "Where housing is concerned," observes social psychologist Thomas Pettigre, "much of the subtlety which clothes racial prejudice in the North is lost."
But Movement leaders are pushing for critical new legislation in 1966, and LBJ is determined to pass a new bill. Late in 1965, the U.S. Civil Rights Commission issues a report on biased law enforcement in the South. Blacks still face police repression and incarcerations, terrorist murders, beatings, bombings, and rapes for asserting their basic human rights. As the law now stands, racists accused of criminal violence against Black voters are tried under state laws in biased state courts. The commission recommends new federal laws protecting voters and civil rights workers — something long sought in previous acts, but not won. This is the most urgent necessity.
All-white, all-male juries are another problem. Most southern states use various schemes and tactics to ensure all-white juries — either across the board or in cases where race is a factor. Many states, including Alabama, Mississippi & South Carolina forbid women from serving on juries while others such as Florida, Louisiana & New Hampshire require that women volunteer for jury service rather than being summoned as is the case with men. Other states have other jury selection inequalities; New York for example, requires all jurors to be property-owners, if you don't own real estate you can't serve on a jury. President Johnson announces that provisions barring discrimination in jury selection will also be included in the new bill.
A section authorizing the Attorney General to initiate desegregation suits is then added to strengthen the Civil Rights Act of 1964. (Under the 1964 law, the Justice Department could not intervene until someone filed a formal complaint and asked for assistance. But anyone who did that faced retaliation from the local sheriff, Ku Klux Klan, and White Citizen Council.)
Civil rights leaders also want action against discrimination in housing. But they know that including open-housing legislation in the bill will be hugely controversial and could well doom the entire package. Rather than risk defeat of the crucial voter-protection and jury-reform provisions, they urge Johnson to expand coverage of Kennedy's Executive Order 11063 which prohibited discrimination in federally-assisted housing. Kennedy's order covered about 3% of total housing units, but LBJ can use his executive power to significantly expand it without going through Congress — or risking the new bill.
Johnson disregards their advice. He believes he has the political power to enact whatever legislation he desires, and he is certain he knows best. In his State of the Union Message on January 12, 1966, he adds Fair Housing legislation to the new bill. Republican Senator Everett Dirksen (R-IL) — whose support was crucial to passage of both the Civil Rights Act in '64 and the Voting Rights Act in '65 — immediately declares adamant opposition to open housing legislation as an unconstitutional limitation on the sacred rights of private property.
Identical bills are introduced in the Senate and House. Led by Emanuel Celler (D-NY), the House acts first, holding hearings in May of 1966. The bill as a whole is named "Civil Rights Act of 1966," but its housing provisions are separately named the "Fair Housing Act" (FHA). Opposition to the FHA is fierce both North and South. And Southern Democrats oppose all the other provisions as well. Complex political battles are waged in public and behind the scenes the various sides maneuver against each other. (Civil 1-4).
Civil rights leaders desired a fair-housing executive order but Johnson’s legal aides doubted its constitutionality. Many administration officials felt housing legislation was unwise at the time because it would not pass due to the social unrest in urban areas. Attorney General Katzenbach was not confident in its passage because there were many in Congress that felt they would lose their seats if they voted for open housing. (Miles 108).
The sections (titles of the initial bill) were as follows.
Titles I and II … sought to guarantee non-discriminatory selection of federal and state jurors, respectively. …
Title III … authorized the Attorney General to initiate desegregation suits with regard to public schools and accommodations. …
Title IV. The open housing proposal came as a genuine surprise to Congress. No President in recent years had proposed such a law (1966 12).
The Administration's Title IV, as introduced, prohibited discrimination in the sale or rental of all housing.
Title V. A law protecting civil rights workers was one urgently sought by civil rights advocates in late 1965 and early 1966. It was perhaps the one provision they considered essential for enactment in 1966. While efforts to pass a federal anti-lynching law dated back to the 1930s, a proposal for a general civil rights law to protect security of the person first appeared in the Democratic party platform of 1948. The Civil Rights Commission as early as 1961 and as late as its Nov. 14, 1965, report urged enactment of such a statute. No Administration proposed such a law until 1966, however (1966 14).
The chief opponent to the open housing title was the real estate industry. The National Association of Real Estate Boards mobilized a thousand local real estate boards to attack the housing clause. Estimates indicated that congressional mail was running one hundred to one against open housing. Arthur Mohl of the Illinois Association of Real Estate Brokers testified against the bill in front of the House Judiciary Committee and said Title IV would not have positive effects on the ghetto. He argued that New York City had an open housing law that enabled riots and a sixty-five percent increase in substandard housing over a ten-year period, while Chicago did not have an open housing law, had no major riots, and experienced a thirty-three percent reduction in substandard housing. He concluded, “We submit that any law which attempts to regulate a personal relationship between two individual citizens, where the public interest is not involved, is un-American and un-democratic. (Miles 112-113).
Lobbying for and against the bill is intense. The NAACP, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) and progressives within the AFL-CIO, lobby hard for the bill. The National Association of Real Estate Boards (NAREB) and banking lobbyists fight furiously against the housing provisions, while law enforcement organizations and southern segregationists oppose ending jury discrimination or creating new laws to protect civil rights "troublemakers."
House floor debate begins on July 25. Conservative Republicans reject restrictions or limitations of any kind on property rights. GOP moderates disagree. Southern Democrats continue their traditional opposition to any legislation that favors Blacks. Northern Democrats, particularly those whose reelection chances rely on coalitions of labor, Blacks, and "ethnic-whites," are split. Some fear that open-housing legislation will transform working-class whites into Republicans and they therefore waffle, trying to please everyone while offending no one. Others hold fast in support of the bill.
Some 77 different amendments are fought out on the House floor. Of the accepted amendments, some weaken the bill, a few strengthen it.
Republicans and Southern Democrats join together to win a close 214-201 vote gutting the Justice Department's ability to file lawsuits against segregated schools and public accommodations by requiring a written complaint of discrimination by victims. Southern Blacks will still have to expose themselves to economic and physical retaliation from sheriffs, Klan, and Citizens Councils before the federal government is allowed to bestir itself to enforce the Constitution and the law (Civil 5).
On July 13 The Housing and Urban Development Department (HUD) declared that there were 60 million existing housing units in the nation. Of those, 34.9 million were owner-occupied one-family homes, 1,520,000 were units in owner-occupied two-family houses and another 509,000 were units in owner-occupied three- and four-family houses, the Department said. Under terms of Title IV as amended by the House, all of those units–totaling 36,933,000–would be exempt from the law, leaving only about 23 million covered by it. For new housing, however, the picture was different; the House-passed bill exempted only the first two housing transactions by any individual or business in any 12-month period, and major housing developers had many more transactions per year than that. Of the total of about 1.5 million new housing units on which construction was started each year, the vast bulk was built by developers and builders for sale or rental. The initial sales or rentals by the developers would be covered by the bill, but if a family bought a house, subsequent resale of the house would be exempt (1966 17).
By a vote of 237-176, an amendment is added to the Fair Housing Act allowing real estate brokers to discriminate against nonwhites if that's what the property-owner wants.
Another amendment is added allowing brokers and developers to racially discriminate in two transactions per year.
Progressive members of Congress propose an amendment to prohibit gender-discrimination in housing. It's defeated (Civil 5-6).
Violence erupted in many cities across the nation during the summer; it generally took the form of crowds of Negroes roaming the streets, hurling bottles and other missiles and taunting police. Rioting broke out between July 12 and 20 in Negro sections of Chicago, Cleveland, Jacksonville, Fla., New York City and South Bend, Ind. It was at its worst in Chicago and Cleveland, where the National Guard was called out and where two persons were killed in each city. Riots subsequently broke out in Atlanta, Ga., which had a history of stable race relations, and in San Francisco. In many instances, the crowds chanted “black power” and “burn, baby, burn” (1966 8).
Believing that the Black urban uprisings now spreading across the nation are caused by "outside agitators" and fiery speeches by militants like Stokely Carmichael and H. Rap Brown, a huge majority in the House add an "anti-riot" amendment making it a federal felony to cross state lines to engage in violence, looting, or arson, or inciting or encouraging others to do so.
On the positive side, an amendment prohibiting discrimination on the basis of the number or age of children is added, as is an anti-blockbusting amendment.
("Blockbusting" is the practice of deliberately inciting racist fear among whites immediately after a nonwhite moves into a neighborhood so that white owners will sell their homes at panic prices to industry speculators who then resell the properties to Blacks and Latinos at a tidy profit.)
In the end, the House bill as amended, bars segregation and discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin and the number or age of children in the sale or rental of roughly 38% of existing housing. (Johnson's original proposal barred discrimination in all housing.) However, for new housing (most of which is built by developers), the great bulk of initial sales or rentals are covered by the bill — yet most subsequent sales or rentals by individual owners are not covered.
On August 9, the House passes the amended bill by a roll-call vote of 259-157.
…
Meanwhile, the Senate Judiciary Committee is also considering LBJ's proposed bill. Subcommittee Chairman Sam Ervin (D-NC), a determined southern segregationist, opposes just about everything in it. He's in no hurry to report it out of his committee — ever.
Senator Philip Hart (D-MI) is the bill's floor leader. In an effort to circumvent Ervin's obstruction, he and Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield (D-MT) attempt a parliamentary maneuver to place the House bill as passed directly on the Senate floor for debate and vote. Opponents filibuster their motion. For 12 days, from September 7 to 19, the Senate debates what is technically a procedural motion — but is in fact the pros and cons of the House bill itself. If the motion passes, the bill will inevitably pass, if it fails, the bill dies (Civil 6-8).
The tool used to defeat a Senate filibuster is called cloture. A minimum of two-thirds of the entire membership of the Senate is required to close a filibuster debate.
By now,… the fervor President Johnson expressed back in January for new civil rights legislation has dramatically waned. He and Democratic Party leaders have been shocked by the ferocious opposition of northern whites to residential integration, most visibly by white-ethnics in Chicago attacking Dr. King's open housing marches. The mid-term elections are now just two months away and Republicans are making gains by whipping-up the "white backlash" vote. LBJ's first priority is maintaining political support for his war in Vietnam, and as he would later write in his memoirs, "Open housing had become a Democratic liability." Administration efforts to round up votes for breaking the filibuster are feeble, half-hearted, and ineffective.
Johnson's abdication leaves Senator [Everett] Dirksen (R-IL) in the driver's seat (Civil 9).
Dirksen was critical in delivering the Republican votes necessary to pass the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968 as well as the Voting Rights Act of 1965. However, … Dirksen was a fundamental conservative that abided by the Constitution and the Supreme Court … (Miles 87).
If he were to support the bill, he'd bring along enough Republicans to end the filibuster. But he opposes it. First, because of the fair housing provisions which, in his view, are an unconstitutional assault on private property rights. And second, upholding "law and order" at all costs is the bedrock foundation of his political creed; ending racial and gender discrimination in jury selection might make it harder to convict and jail those accused of crimes. "For all practical purposes, the civil rights bill is dead," he tells reporters.
On September 14, and then again on the 19th, supporters in the Senate try to break the filibuster. They need 66 votes. They don't get them. The closest they come is 54 "Aye" vs 42 "Nay" — a majority, but not a two-thirds majority.
Senator James Eastland (D-MS), an ardent segregationist, crows, "The civil rights advocates who hope to force an interracial society have been completely routed. The old-time coalition of Southern Democrats and Republicans were united and effective. ... [Soon] we can start the fight to repeal those vicious measures," (meaning the 1964 Civil Rights and 1965 Voting Rights Acts).
Representative Emanuel Celler (D-NY) tells reporters that it failed because Republicans were searching for votes in the South. "It is a tragic thing that the majority of the [Republican] party which claims the heritage of the Great Emancipator, Abraham Lincoln, should join in the familiar 'Southern strategy'" (Civil 9-11).
On… Sept. 19, knowing the game was up, Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield (D Mont.) moved to adjourn the Senate and thus to kill the bill.
Defeat of the Act was a stunning setback for the Administration of President Johnson and for the civil rights movement. It marked a signal change in the attitude of the same Congress which had passed the historic Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. … said the Senate vote “surely heralds darker days for this social era of discontent” (1966 1-2).
Works cited:
“1966 Civil Rights Act Dies in Senate.” CQ Almanac 1966. Web. https://library.cqpress.com/cqalmanac...
“Civil Rights Act of 1966 Killed by Senate Fillibuster (Sept).” Civil Rights Movement History 1966 (July-December) Web. https://www.crmvet.org/tim/tim66b.htm...
Miles, Darren. “The Art of the Possible: Everett Dirksen’s Role in Civil Rights Legislation of the 1950s and 1960s.” Western Illinois Historical Review. Vol. One, Spring 2009. Web. http://www.wiu.edu/cas/history/wihr/p...
