To no one’s surprise, the Civil Rights Act outraged segregationists. But in fundamental ways, countless other whites—in the South and elsewhere—found themselves disturbed not by the act’s goals but by the means used to reach them. Whatever these whites may have felt about the significant changes the act enabled in race relations, they were much more troubled by the revolutionary ways in which the new legislation expanded the power of the federal government and constricted the prerogatives of private businessmen.
