Sixty Years After
July 2024
the Civil Rights Act of 1964:
Ongoing Threats and
the Work Ahead
2
In May 1963, more than 1,000 children
peacefully protested to desegregate
Birmingham, Alabama. In response, the police
used fire hoses and unleashed police dogs to
break up the demonstrators. Images of the
children being brutally assaulted shocked the
nation and the world, and one month later, in a
June 11 speech, President John F. Kennedy
unveiled his vision for what became the Civil
Rights Act of 1964.
“It ought to be possible, therefore, for
American students of any color to attend any
public institution they select without having to
be backed up by troops. It ought to be
possible for American consumers of any color
to receive equal service in places of public
accommodation, such as hotels and
restaurants and theaters and retail stores,
without being forced to resort to
demonstrations in the street, and it ought to be
possible for American citizens of any color to
register to vote in a free election without
interference or fear of reprisal,” President
Kennedy said in his speech. “It ought to be
possible, in short, for every American to enjoy
the privileges of being American without
regard to his race or his color. In short, every
American ought to have the right to be treated
as he would wish to be treated, as one would
wish his children to be treated. But this is not
the case.”
It was indeed not the case. At that time in
America, only 60 years ago, schools,
restaurants, public bathrooms, and even
drinking fountains were strictly segregated
through much of the South. But in the 1960s, a
series of landmark federal laws was enacted to
make real the constitutional commitment of
equal protection. The first of these, the Civil
Rights Act of 1964, catalyzed the most
successful peaceful revolution in human
history.
Passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
Harsh treatment of peaceful demonstrators
throughout the South had previously led to
civil rights legislation in 1957 and 1960, but
intense opposition in the Senate resulted in
laws that, while critically important to this day,
did not give the federal government a strong
mandate to enforce their anti-discrimination
provisions.
In June 1963, as a nation horrified by violence
in the South demanded action, President
Kennedy sent to Congress the most
comprehensive civil rights bill lawmakers had
yet seen and invited civil rights leaders to the
White House to enlist their support. Though
the proposed legislation still fell far short of
what these leaders considered to be essential,
they nonetheless began taking steps to lobby
on the bill.
“The Civil Rights Act
of 1964 catalyzed
.the most successful.
.peaceful revolution.
.in human history.”.
3
The House passed the Civil Rights Act on
February 10, 1964, after 70 days of public
hearings and testimony from more than 275
witnesses, but a 57-day filibuster prevented
the Senate from voting. Finally, on June 10,
1964, the Senate voted to end the filibuster
and passed the bill a week later.
The Civil Rights Act, signed into law by
President Johnson on July 2, 1964, outlawed
discrimination on the basis of race, color,
religion, national origin, and sex. Different titles
of the act prohibited discrimination in public
accommodations, employment, and federally
funded programs. The act also banned
unequal application of voter registration
requirements and prohibited denying the right
to vote based on non-material errors. It
established a framework within the federal
government for combating discrimination by
giving the U.S. attorney general the power to
file discrimination suits, expanding the
mandate of the U.S. Commission on Civil
Rights, and establishing the Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to review
employment discrimination complaints.
“This Civil Rights Act is a challenge to all of us
to go to work in our communities and our
States, in our homes and in our hearts, to
eliminate the last vestiges of injustice in our
beloved country,” President Johnson said when
he signed the bill into law. “My fellow citizens,
we have come now to a time of testing. We
must not fail. Let us close the springs of racial
poison. Let us pray for wise and understanding
hearts. Let us lay aside irrelevant differences
and make our Nation whole.”
But the law’s passage was not inevitable. A
concerted, organized effort by the nation’s civil
rights organizations — working through the
powerful civil rights coalition that persists today
— ensured that the legislation was
strengthened and ultimately became law, and it
paved the way for the Voting Rights Act of
1965, the Fair Housing Act of 1968, and other
key civil rights legislation.
4
The Role of The Leadership Conference
The Leadership Conference on Civil and
Human Rights, then known as the Leadership
Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR), coordinated
the lobbying efforts that led to the
strengthening and eventual passage of the
Civil Rights Act of 1964. As political scientist
Robert D. Loevy wrote, “The super lobby which
the Leadership Conference organized behind
the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was probably one
of the largest and most powerful lobbies ever
organized in United States political history.”
Loevy’s “To End All Segregation” and Professor
Shamira Gelbman’s “The Civil Rights Lobby”
powerfully document the role of LCCR and the
year-long effort to advance the most sweeping
civil rights legislation Congress has ever
passed.
As Gelbman details, LCCR opened a
permanent office with a dedicated staff in the
summer of 1963, something that Roy Wilkins —
LCCR co-founder and then-chairman —
announced at a June 22 White House meeting
when he proposed that LCCR should lead the
Civil Rights Act lobbying campaign. “The new
headquarters enhanced the LCCR’s
administrative efficiency, enabling the
Leadership Conference to operate as a central
hub and clearinghouse for a multifaceted
lobbying campaign that mobilized an
assortment of human and other resources
continuously for nearly a year,” Gelbman
writes. “It also facilitated new organizational
practices that further enhanced the LCCR’s
coordination capacity. One such innovation
was the use of the new office space for regular
meetings for the Washington representatives
of all member organizations…”
LCCR’s leadership role in the Civil Rights Act
lobbying campaign was ratified during a
meeting at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York on
July 2, 1963, when roughly 100 leaders
gathered to commit themselves to working
together and winning passage of a strong civil
rights bill. In a July 25 memo to Leadership
Conference organizations, LCCR co-founder
and then-secretary Arnold Aronson wrote that
“Implementing the decision of the July 2
meeting in New York, we have opened a
Washington office to serve as headquarters for
the campaign to effect the passage by this
Congress of the strongest possible civil rights
bill.”
The new civil rights bill faced stiff opposition in
Congress, as the previous bills did. But the
assassination of President Kennedy later that
fall, the intensive lobbying by LCCR and
President Lyndon B. Johnson himself, and the
historic March on Washington for Jobs and
Freedom grassroots mobilization in August put
tremendous pressure on Congress to pass the
bill. And devastating white supremacist violence
that year — including the assassination of
Medgar Evers in June and the 16th Street
Baptist Church bombing, which killed four little
girls in Birmingham in September — made clear
that federal action was needed to advance
racial justice and to send a powerful signal that
all people were welcome — and would be
protected — in the United States.
5
“The President's civil rights program has been
introduced in the House by Congressman
Celler as H.R. 7152 and in the Senate by
Senator Mansfield and 45 others as S. 1731,”
stated a 16-page Leadership Conference
memorandum prepared for that July 2 meeting
in New York. “It is the most comprehensive civil
rights bill ever to receive serious consideration
from the Congress of the United States.” It
would take exactly one year from that meeting,
until July 2, 1964, for President Johnson to sign
the legislation.
In February 1964, after the House of
Representatives passed the bill, Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr. sent a telegram to The
Leadership Conference. “The passage of H.R.
7152 is tribute to the able and dedicated work
of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights,”
Dr. King wrote. “I join the millions of civil rights
devotees around the country in expressing my
sincere gratitude to each of you for your work
in Washington.”
Dr. King would later support LCCR’s role in
leading the lobbying campaign for what
became the Voting Rights Act of 1965, writing
that “We must all strive to bring about a
unified position of the Leadership
Conference and then working through the
Conference carry that position to fruition. In
any event, where disagreements exist they
should be worked out fully, debated and
resolved, within the framework of the
Leadership Conference.” Fewer than six
months later, President Johnson signed the
Voting Rights Act into law.
The nation has made tremendous progress
since the civil rights movement of the 1960s
propelled America forward. Decades after
these landmark legislative achievements,
however, hard-won civil rights gains are
under attack.
6
Ongoing and Emerging Threats to Civil and
Human Rights
The 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act is
an important milestone that measures the
progress the nation has made and the distance
still left to travel on freedom’s road. More than
half a century ago, civil rights activists across
the nation and a coalition of advocates in
Washington, D.C., fought to fulfill the promise
of the Emancipation Proclamation from a
century before. Sixty years later, the nation still
struggles to turn the language of that pivotal
legislation of the 1960s into living realities for
all of its people. And worse, extremist forces
are actively working to turn back the clock on
civil rights progress.
Rollback of Rights and Weaponization of
Courts
Six decades after the Civil Rights Act outlawed
discrimination in many facets of American life,
the nation is still facing efforts to ban diversity,
equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA)
initiatives, divide communities, and roll back
important civil rights achievements. During the
previous administration, for example, the
United States saw an across-the-board assault
on civil and human rights, including a
Department of Justice (DOJ) that pulled back
on federal civil rights enforcement and
unraveled portions of the DOJ’s progress
during the Obama administration. And after
decades of manufacturing a judicial takeover
in response to the progress of the civil rights
movement, the previous administration pushed
for 234 lifetime confirmations of federal
judges, including three Supreme Court
justices, who will serve for decades to come —
with many of the previous administration’s
judicial appointees possessing anti-civil rights
records.
Already, as seen in far too many decisions —
including in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health
Organization, when the Supreme Court
overturned the constitutional right to abortion —
our civil rights protections are being dismantled
in some federal courts. Just this term, the
Supreme Court’s extremist majority allowed for
the criminalization of homelessness, attacked
the rights of Black voters, hindered federal
agency enforcement of civil rights laws and
protections, delayed justice for pregnant
people, and further undermined our democracy
and the rule of law.
Today, amidst the devastating decisions, the
ongoing and escalating ethics crisis at the U.S.
Supreme Court remains a serious threat to civil
rights and democracy. We need a federal
judiciary that works for all of us. The decisions
judges and justices make shape democracy and
determine whether all people can live free and
full lives in which civil and human rights are
respected and protected. But the wealthy and
powerful few have coordinated to stack the
deck in their own favor and against the rights of
everyday people. This well-funded and
long-term agenda seeks to pursue litigation
against constitutional and civil rights protections
and staff courts with ideological extremists with
the goal of rolling back these rights. The impact
of this agenda continues to be reflected in
radical decisions that upend decades of
precedent in order to dismantle the most basic
freedoms and recognition of our hard-fought
civil and human rights.
7
The recent rollbacks compound the harms of
earlier decisions, including the Supreme
Court’s 2001 decision in Alexander v. Sandoval
eliminating a private right of action with
respect to discrimination demonstrated
through disparate impact under Title VI of the
Civil Rights Act. Removing this vital tool has
undermined the law’s original intent to end
discrimination in all its forms and has exposed
people to discrimination based on race, color,
and national origin.
Attacks on DEIA
Extremist forces are seeking to manipulate and
weaponize civil rights law and the tools of
racial progress to maintain white supremacy
and reverse the gains that have been made to
create an America that lives up to its ideals as
a nation.
“Today, amidst the
devastating decisions, the
ongoing and escalating
ethics crisis at the U.S.
Supreme Court .remains a.
.serious threat to civil.
.rights and democracy.”.
In 2023, the Supreme Court rejected more than
40 years of its own precedent to find that the
consideration of race as one of many factors in
college admissions was unlawful. This
wrong-headed decision, although narrowly
addressing higher education admissions, has
been used as justification to attack race neutral
and race conscious policies and programs at all
levels.
For example, in addition to disregarding or
misrepresenting the well-established role of the
federal government in promoting equal
economic opportunity, opponents of racial
progress have mischaracterized the Supreme
Court’s June 2023 decisions in Students for Fair
Admissions (SFFA) v. Harvard College/
University of North Carolina (UNC) in a cynical
effort to advance a longstanding agenda of
economic exclusion and discrimination. The
Supreme Court’s decisions last year, which
rolled back affirmative action in higher
education, do not change employers’ duty to
create workplaces free from discrimination,
including through efforts designed to achieve
diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility.
Employers should double down on creating
opportunities for all — and the federal
government must demonstrate leadership and
provide clarity to that end.
These attacks on diversity also include efforts to
prevent critical thinking and erase the history of
the nation by banning books that would
selectively stamp out the perspectives of Black
people, LGBTQ people, and other historically
marginalized groups. And shamefully, it includes
ongoing legal efforts by activists like Ed Blum,
who now seek to shutter a venture capital firm’s
grant program for startups run by Black women.
These efforts are intended to intimidate, and
more will likely be seen in the months ahead.
8
Threats to Full and Fair Voting
Nearly 60 years after passage of the Voting
Rights Act, racial discrimination in voting and
other threats to safe and fair elections
continue to undermine democracy and can
have a corrosive effect on the safety and
voting rights of people of color and other
targeted communities. The Supreme Court’s
2013 decision in Shelby County v. Holder
gutted the heart of the Voting Rights Act and
unleashed a tsunami of voter suppression laws
that continue in ferocity and intensity today.
States and jurisdictions with a history of voter
discrimination no longer have to seek
pre-approval of voting changes to ensure they
are not discriminatory — and it shows. States
have passed nearly 100 restrictive voting laws
since the Shelby County decision. As
recounted in The Leadership Conference
Education Fund’s report, “Ten Years After
Shelby County v. Holder: Charting the Path
Forward for Our Democracy,” the harm to
voters has been cumulative and infects every
aspect of the electoral process.
Election-related disinformation, often intended
to drive wedges between and suppress the
vote across vulnerable communities and
communities of color, is also on the rise.
Disinformation propelled the horrific acts of
violence on the U.S. Capitol and the attempt to
halt the constitutional process for Electoral
College ballot certification on January 6, 2021.
It didn’t stop there. Both organized extremists
and distrusting and dangerous individuals
have since been empowered and incited by
unfounded election integrity claims that in
some cases have been elevated and endorsed
by elected leaders, business leaders, and
celebrities. These actions have deepened
distrust and stoked the spread of hate,
harassment, and harm, both during and
between election cycles.
With rampant disinformation still spreading
about the Big Lie and election processes,
increased harassment of election officials, and
now the rapid growth of artificial intelligence
(AI), it is imperative that steps are taken to
address the spread of falsehoods.
Emerging Threat of AI and New Technologies
The rapid growth of AI is concerning, but the
civil rights community is well-positioned to
address it. In 2014, The Leadership
Conference, along with 14 signatories,
released the “Civil Rights Principles for the Era
of Big Data” calling on the U.S. government
and businesses to respect and promote equal
opportunity and equal justice in the
development and use of data-driven
technologies. These principles were updated
in 2020. While AI drives the policy
conversation today, these systems are
powered by “big data” — and the threats this
technology can pose to civil rights have only
grown.
With the widespread use of AI, for example,
individuals are grappling with the impacts of
discriminatory automated systems in just about
every facet of life, leading to loss of economic
opportunities, higher costs or denial of loans
and credit, adverse impact on their
employment or ability to get a job, lower
quality health care, and barriers to housing.
Algorithmic systems are producing
discriminatory outcomes that impair equal
opportunity and erode civil rights protections.
Measures must be taken to ensure that AI is
equitable.
9
A Rise in Hate
These emerging threats come at a pivotal moment
for the United States and during a year when
democracy is at stake. As noted in The Leadership
Conference Education Fund’s recent “Cause for
Concern” report, today’s political climate is highly
charged. From white supremacist and
anti-government movements coalescing and
moving more into the political mainstream, to
conspiracy theories circulating online, to the
amplification of hate by public officials, there are
few — if any — signs that tensions will lessen.
Movements grounded in attempts to whitewash
history and deny the rights of the LGBTQ+
community have turned hate into campaign
platforms. Furthermore, the most recent outbreak
of violence in the Middle East has created a
climate of increased hate targeting Arab, Jewish,
and Muslim Americans. This is a climate that has
been exploited by white supremacists seeking to
further their hateful agendas.
In October 2023, the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI) released the most recent
statistics on hate crimes. These data showed that
2022 was the highest year on record for reported
hate crimes since the FBI began publishing the
data in 1991 — marking the third consecutive year
of record-high reports of hate crimes. Tragically,
since 2015, reported hate crimes have nearly
doubled.
Additional Civil Rights Concerns
Beyond this, a number of other serious challenges
to civil and human rights remain. From a
discriminatory criminal-legal system and hundreds
of anti-LGBTQ+ bills being introduced across the
nation, including devastating attacks on
transgender and non-binary children, to efforts to
undermine the 2030 Census with the addition of a
citizenship question, the work of The Leadership
Conference is more important than ever.
These are big challenges and taken together
represent an enormous threat to fundamental
rights and democracy. But historic
anniversaries like this one are reminders that
the journey toward justice is like an Olympic
relay. We take the torch from those who came
before and pass it along to those who will
follow. This year, as we recall the generation
of giants whose sacrifices came before us, we
are inspired to make the less risky but still
righteous commitment to carry their work
forward in protecting and promoting justice
throughout the United States.
As the late Congressman John Lewis often
said, “We cannot give up now. We cannot give
in. We must keep the faith, keep our eyes on
the prize.”
Indeed, there is reason to be hopeful.
“As the late Congressman
John Lewis often said,
‘We cannot give up now.
We cannot give in. We
must keep the faith, keep
our eyes on the prize.’
.Indeed,.there is reason.
.to be hopeful.”.
10
Unfinished Business and the Work Ahead
When Congress passed and President
Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act 60 years
ago, the federal government, with bipartisan
support, made a formal and ongoing
commitment to defend the civil rights of all the
people of this nation. Today, that commitment
is being renewed.
In his inaugural address on January 20, 2021,
President Joseph R. Biden told the nation that
“A cry for racial justice some 400 years in the
making moves us. The dream of justice for all
will be deferred no longer…And now, a rise in
political extremism, white supremacy, domestic
terrorism that we must confront and we will
defeat. To overcome these challenges — to
restore the soul and to secure the future of
America — requires more than words.”
On many fronts, the Biden administration has
taken that call to action seriously. As noted in a
June 2023 Leadership Conference report, for
example, the Biden administration’s executive
action on civil and human rights was a hallmark
of its policy agenda during the administration’s
first two years. Of the more than 100 executive
orders the administration had issued at the
time, approximately half had civil rights
implications, including on LGBTQ+ rights, fair
labor protections, health care access, and
immigration reform, among many others. Most
notably, this administration has publicly
centered equity in its work, and its executive
orders on advancing racial equity issued on
January 21, 2021 and February 16, 2023 are
groundbreaking. Of course, there is more the
administration can and should do, including in
its full implementation of these important
executive orders.
At the Department of Justice, The Leadership
Conference was especially pleased with the
president’s nomination of former President and
CEO Vanita Gupta to be the first woman of color
and first civil rights lawyer to serve as associate
attorney general (she departed DOJ earlier this
year) — and with the appointment of Kristen
Clarke, a former Leadership Conference board
member and ally in the civil rights community, to
be the first woman confirmed and first Black
woman ever to serve as assistant attorney
general for civil rights. Together with Attorney
General Garland, the DOJ has been back in the
business of enforcing the nation’s federal civil
rights laws, including the Civil Rights Act, and
has restored independence and integrity to the
department’s critical work.
President Biden has also, to date, appointed
more than 200 lifetime federal judges, and
many have been supported by civil rights
organizations for being highly qualified,
fair-minded, demographically and professionally
diverse, and committed to civil and human
rights — including Justice Ketanji Brown
Jackson, the first Black woman and first former
public defender to serve on the U.S. Supreme
Court. These lifetime judges will decide
important issues — from voting rights to equal
pay to health care access. Our urgent task is to
create a more ethical and fair federal judiciary
that works for all of us. There is so much at
stake, and it is critical that the president and all
senators work to fill all judicial vacancies with
diverse nominees who are committed to equal
justice. This will matter for decades to come.
11
Much progress has been made since 2021 to
achieve the coalition’s shared vision of an
America as good in practice as it is in promise.
Still, much work remains.
The criminal-legal system continues to be a
stain on our democracy and must be
transformed into a system that respects the
humanity, dignity, and human rights of all
people. A welcoming education system that
prepares all students for college, career, life,
and the full exercise of their social, political,
and economic rights remains an elusive goal.
There is a critical need for safe and affordable
housing for all people living in the United
States, and we need equal pay, fair wages, and
other important policies that will advance
economic justice for all. Comprehensive voting
rights reform to ensure the freedom to vote for
all voters and to eradicate any and all racial
discrimination in voting must be passed by
Congress at the very first opportunity. Every
person in the United States must have an
equal opportunity to access quality health care
(including abortion), achieve positive health
outcomes, and lead a healthy life. Vigorous
enforcement of hate crime protections and
expanded, coordinated police-community
efforts to track and respond to hate violence
and improve hate crime data collection efforts
are urgently needed. And it's not too early to
work toward a fair and accurate 2030 Census
to ensure that political power and federal
resources are fairly allocated among the
states.
12
Beyond this, new, 21st century risks that are
outside of our existing legal and policy
frameworks will need to be addressed. These
include risks posed by AI and other
technologies. During a recent event hosted by
The Leadership Conference’s Center for Civil
Rights and Technology, Charlotte Burrows, chair
of the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission (EEOC), emphasized that the
EEOC, as well other civil rights enforcement
agencies, must remain vigilant to ensure that
any advantages that come with the use of AI
and other automated technologies don’t come
at the price of equal opportunity.
Chair Burrows also paid tribute to the historical
work of The Leadership Conference. “The
members of The Leadership Conference, as you
all know, have been the conscience of our civil
rights community for decades. And as we
prepare to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the
Civil Rights Act of 1964, which gave birth to my
agency, the EEOC, I’d be remiss not to mention
that The Leadership Conference also had a key
role in advocating for the successful passage of
that landmark act,” Chair Burrows said. “So
there should be no surprise that The Leadership
Conference is once again at the forefront, on
the cutting edge, of this important civil rights
issue right now in 2024.”
As The Leadership Conference nears its 75th
anniversary, the coalition remains committed to
these important issues and to advocating on
behalf of communities across the nation. In
2024, The Leadership Conference is continuing
to call on tech companies to protect voters
against disinformation; urging the president to
promote, protect, and strengthen programs that
achieve diversity, equity, inclusion, and
accessibility; demanding urgent action to
address the escalating judicial ethics crisis;
calling for passage of desperately needed
federal voting rights legislation; and pushing for
additional action to protect our rights and build
a multiracial democracy that works for all
people.
Civil and human rights progress in America has
never been linear, and the whiplash the nation
has experienced has understandably caused
despair. Though we are living in an era of
relentless threats to our democracy and to the
fundamental rights that were secured by the
civil rights giants who came before us, we must
also remember this: We are a diverse coalition
of people in America — of every background
and identity — who know that we all have a
stake in each other's lives and futures. We will
not back down. We are the majority in this
country, and we must show up to prevent
accelerating the decades-long effort to
dismantle our civil and human rights and to
ensure a future filled with equal justice and
opportunity.
While there are those who seek to roll back the
clock, halt racial progress, and undermine the
gains we have made as a nation, including
those stemming from the Civil Rights Act of
1964, our laws and our values will not allow us
to move backwards. We must fight forward —
together in coalition — for the nation and future
we all deserve.
“We must fight forward —
together in coalition —
.for the nation and future.
.we all deserve.”.
