What was the Civil Rights Act of 1964?

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was the landmark federal law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin in employment, public accommodations, and federally funded programs. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed it on July 2, 1964, just hours after the House of Representatives gave final approval. The act had been proposed by President John F. Kennedy in a televised address on June 11, 1963 in response to Birmingham violence and the wider civil rights crisis. After Kennedy's assassination on November 22, 1963, Johnson committed himself to passing the bill as a memorial to his predecessor and as part of his Great Society agenda.

The bill faced fierce opposition from southern Democrats. The Senate filibuster lasted 60 working days, the longest in history at the time. Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia spoke for 14 hours and 13 minutes against the bill. Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota led the supporters and worked with Republican Minority Leader Everett Dirksen of Illinois to assemble a two-thirds supermajority for cloture. The Senate voted 71 to 29 to end the filibuster on June 10, 1964, the first successful cloture vote on a civil rights bill in American history. The act passed the Senate 73 to 27 on June 19 and the House 289 to 126 on July 2.

Title I prohibited unequal voter registration requirements. Title II banned discrimination by hotels, restaurants, theaters, and other places of public accommodation. Title III empowered the attorney general to sue to desegregate public facilities. Title IV authorized federal action to desegregate public schools. Title VI cut off federal funding to programs that practiced discrimination. Title VII created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and prohibited workplace discrimination.

The inclusion of sex as a protected category in Title VII came from an unlikely amendment offered by Representative Howard Smith of Virginia, a segregationist who hoped to defeat the entire bill, but it survived and became a foundation for women's rights in the workplace. The Supreme Court upheld the public accommodations provisions in Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States and Katzenbach v. McClung, both decided December 14, 1964, citing the Commerce Clause. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 fundamentally reshaped American law and society and remains the most important civil rights statute in the country.