One such ally was William McCulloch, a Republican congressman from a conservative district in rural Ohio who would become one of the civil rights movement’s most ardent supporters. Kennedy knew that he would need support from both sides of the aisle to ensure the bill's passage, and wasted no time recruiting allies to his purpose. But the political fight over the bill's passage was just beginning. 7152-what would become the Civil Rights Act of 1964-to the House of Representatives. “Next week I shall ask the Congress of the United States to act,” President Kennedy said, “to make a commitment it has not fully made in this century to the proposition that race has no place in American life or law.'Įight days later, on June 19, 1963, Emmanuel Celler, a New York Democrat, introduced H.R. 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,' the president said, noting that while he had recently met with dozens of business leaders in an effort to persuade them to voluntarily adopt measures to end discrimination, he would also bring the matter before Congress. 'It ought to be possible…for every American to enjoy the privileges of being American without regard to his race or his color. Kennedy began his address by talking about the two black students who had recently enrolled in the University of Alabama, but needed the presence of Alabama National Guardsmen in order to safely attend classes.

It wasn't until 1963, in a televised speech, that President Kennedy called for a robust Civil Rights Act.

In 1957, Congress finally managed to pass a limited Civil Rights Act, which it added to in 1960, but these bills offered black Americans only modest gains.

The photo above, taken by White House press office photographer Cecil Stoughton, shows the wide range of politicans and private citizens it took to guide the Civil Rights Act from a presidential promise to a national law.Ĭongress had considered, and failed to pass, a civil rights bill every year from 1945 to 1957. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, a landmark piece of legislation, was a long time in the making, and the passage of the bill required the political machinations of an assortment of Republicans, Democrats, Northerners and Southerners, congressmen, senators, presidents and activists.

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