Role of government in improving civil rights in the 1960s

The attitudes of US presidents to civil rights

President Kennedy

President Kennedy was an open supporter of civil rights. Examples of Kennedy’s actions are:

He appointed Thurgood Marshall to be a senior judge in 1962. Marshall was one of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People lawyers involved in the Brown v Board of Education of Topeka case.
He was prepared to intervene when there was evidence of individual state governments trying to avoid implementing civil rights rulings. For example, he threatened to sue the state of Louisiana for refusing to fund schools.
In 1962, Kennedy sent large numbers of and to protect a black American student, James Meredith, as he attended the University of Mississippi. The university had previously only admitted white students. Meredith had faced a lot of opposition to his application.
In 1963, Kennedy pressured Governor George Wallace to force the police to release the protesters jailed in the Birmingham marches and to give more jobs to Black Americans.
In 1963, Kennedy gave a speech on civil rights on the radio and television in which he talked of the importance of supporting racial equality.
In 1963, Kennedy began getting to pass a law to end and against black Americans. This was passed by his successor, President Lyndon B Johnson, after Kennedy’s assassination.

President Johnson

Lyndon B Johnson had been Kennedy’s vice president. When he took up the role of president, many people were unsure whether he would continue with Kennedy’s policies on race and society. Johnson’s changes to policies were not specifically designed to help those who were being discriminated against due to race, but his support for the poorest benefited many African Americans. These changes included:

pledging $800 million to tackle poverty, which supported many African Americans who were below the
providing medical support to over-65s
granting scholarships to students who could not afford the entrance fees to university
improving housing for the poorest people in society

1964 Civil Rights Act

A photograph of President Lyndon B Johnson shaking hands with Dr Martin Luther King surrounded by people — Figure caption,
President Lyndon B Johnson shakes Dr Martin Luther King Jnr’s hand after signing the 1964 Civil Rights Act into law

President Kennedy started work on a new civil rights bill in 1963. It faced a lot of opposition from southern politicians in Congress. After Kennedy’s President Johnson persuaded Congress to pass the bill into law in Kennedy’s memory. This divided opinion - some black Americans thought it was too little, too late. Many non-black people in the southern states, including politicians, strongly disapproved of it. They thought it went too far. Johnson felt that the signing of the bill would turn many southern voters against his Democratic Party for a “generation” as they were so opposed to how it supported African Americans.

The 1964 Civil Rights Act included terms that did the following:

banned in public places, businesses (such as restaurants and hotels) and education
made the federal government responsible for bringing prosecutions against people and businesses that were accused of discrimination
put the Fair Employment Practices Committee in charge of making sure that people were not being discriminated against at work
created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to enforce the act

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.

— President Lyndon B Johnson in a speech about the 1964 Civil Rights Act, July 1964