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Presidents, Truman, Eisenhower, JFK and Johnson Civil Rights.

Decent Essays

Civil Rights
(The Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson Years)

Civil Right in the Truman Era
• Post-war prosperity, Cold War rhetoric led to increasing assertiveness of African-Americans
• Truman began to address civil rights issues, shortly after the war o 1946 - appoints commission to propose civil rights legislation o 1948 - Proposes civil rights legislations
 Called for permanent Federal civil rights commission
 Called for a permanent Fair Employment Practices Committee to end discrimination in employment
 Blocked by Southern Democrats in Congress o African-Americans key in Truman's surprise victory in 1948 election
 Truman again pushes FEPC, also anti-lynching legislation
 again blocked in Congress by Southern …show more content…

Johnson (1963-1969) and Civil Rights
• A former Majority Leader in the Senate, LBJ was able to maneuver legislation through Congress that others had been unable to.
• Civil Rights Act of 1964 o LBJ passed this legislation with votes from Northern Democrats and Republicans o Made segregation by race of public facilities illegal o Established the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to combat job discrimination o Provided protection for voting rights or African Americans. o Also made advances in prohibiting gender discrimination
• The Great Society o LBJ ran for election in 1964 campaigning on a war against poverty o As part of his campaign, he immediately began pursuing a number of anti-poverty programs, which came to be known as the Great Society o Winning in a massive landslide, continued to enact social legislation, such as Medicare
• Voting Rights Act of 1965 o Saw civil rights, and Black voting in particular, as a key part of these programs o Again, televised violence was key - police brutality against marchers in Selma led LBJ to call for comprehensive voting rights o Congress quickly passed the Voting Rights Act
 banned literacy tests in states and counties were less than half of population voted in 1964
 sent Federal registrars to those places to insure African Americans got on the voting rolls
 dramatically increased the number of Black voters in the South
• Immigration Act of 1965 o LBJ

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