[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 87 (Friday, July 1, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: July 1, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                      THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT OF 1964

 Mr. RIEGLE. Mr. President, I rise today to commemorate the 
30th anniversary of one of the most important and far-reaching laws 
ever passed by this body. On July 2, 1964, President Lyndon Johnson 
signed the Civil Rights Act into law just 5 hours after it had passed 
the House of Representatives. In doing so, President Johnson helped to 
facilitate and encourage one of the great revolutions of our age: the 
legal recognition of African-Americans as full and equal participants 
in American society.
  It must be very difficult for young Americans today to comprehend how 
formidable were the barriers to civil rights in 1964. Although almost 
100 years had passed since the end of the Civil War and the enactment 
of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the Constitution, the promise 
of equality under the law that those amendments embodied had gone 
largely unfulfilled. Throughout the United States, black Americans were 
routinely denied equal access to restaurants, hotels, housing, and 
public accommodations generally.
  The capstone of this Jim Crow system was the denial to African-
Americans of that equality of economic opportunity which is a necessary 
predicate to any group's full participation in the larger society. 
Black Americans were consigned to both physical and cultural ghettos, 
denied equal access to institutions which most of us take for granted. 
From great corporations to the corner grocery, flagrant hiring 
discrimination abounded. While a rising sea of prosperity was lifting 
all boats, African-Americans were left stranded on the shore.
  Thirty years ago this week, with one stroke of his pen, President 
Johnson removed the legal foundations of Jim Crow by signing the 1964 
Civil Rights Act into law. This was an act of great political courage, 
the foundations for which had been laid by the Kennedy administration. 
But it never would have been possible without countless preceding acts 
of even greater courage on the part of civil rights workers like Martin 
Luther King, Jr., who sacrificed their very lives for the cause of 
equal opportunity and dignity among the races.
  At present, we are in danger of becoming complacent about the gains 
that we have made in the extension of civil rights to all Americans. 
Distracted by small squabbles, we sometimes lose sight of the larger 
goals and aspirations that animated the movement in its earlier days.
  Racial misunderstanding and bigotry are far from extinction; racial 
tensions occasionally flare into overt violence. But the gains we have 
made are undeniable. Over the past 30 years, we have made significant 
strides toward legal equality between the races. In spite of the racial 
conflicts that continue to plague our Nation, we are continuing to make 
strides toward a more just and a more tolerant society.
  Mr. President, I believe that we can best commemorate the 30th 
anniversary of the 1964 Civil Rights Act by rededicating ourselves to 
the task of bringing about a society in which, as Dr. King said, men 
and women are judged by the content of their characters and not by the 
color of their skin.

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