The Civil Rights Act Of 1964

On April 19, 1866, the US Congress passed the first ever Civil Rights Act. It gave black Americans the right to own their own property, to have legal protection in business, and to take people to court. The act was also the first time that black Americans were called citizens of the United States. This meant that black Americans would have the same rights and privileges as all other US citizens. Another Civil Rights Act was passed in 1875. This act made it illegal to discriminate on the basis of race in public places, such as restaurants. In 1883, the Supreme Court ruled that the 1875 act was unconstitutional on the basis that businesses had the right to choose which customers they served and which they could ignore. This allowed businesses that provided public facilities to choose to exclude black people. On June 1, 1909, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was formed. It became the most important civil rights organization fighting for the rights of black people in the United States. It is still active today and has a membership of about half a million. On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court passed a judgment that changed the course of civil rights in the United States. In the case of Brown v. the Board of Education, the judges on the Supreme Court declared that racial segregation in education was unconstitutional and therefore against the law. This decision overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson case of 1896. Shortly after noon on Monday May 17,

Possibly the most conversational amendment to every make it’s way through the Senate and the House was the Equal Rights Amendment in 1972. The Equal Rights Amendment was, “introduced through the twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, and sixties without success” (Schneir, 369). Various organizations such as the National Woman’s Party (those who proposed it), National Organization for Women, the Women’s Department of the United Auto Workers, and many other feminists worked most if not all of their lives to pass this specific amendment. In the early 1970’s, the House approved the amendment by a large ratio of 354 to 23. Additionally, in 1972, the Senate also passed the amendment by another shocking ratio of 84 to 8. Unfortunately, the amendment did not pass by its deadline of June 30th, 1982 by only thirty-five states approving it for ratification by at least thirty-eight states (Schneir, 370). There were various reasons why the amendment did not pass, and Miriam Schneir discussed several of these in the section Equal Rights Amendment in the book Feminism in Our Time.

President Lyndon B. Johnson and President John F. Kennedy made many notable advances to outlaw discrimination in America. They fought against discrimination on race, color, religion, and national origin. Although the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments outlawed slavery, provided for equal protection under the law, guaranteed citizenship, and protected the right to vote, individual states continued to allow unfair treatment of minorities and passed Jim Crow laws allowing segregation of public facilities. America would not be the country it is today without their effort to make this country better and of course without the help of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The Emancipation Proclamation freed all slaves in the U.S. After the Civil War, the withdrawal of the federal troops from the south, and the Fourteenth Amendment was what they emancipated. The reconstruction lasted 12 years from 1871 until 1883 when the Supreme Court ruled the Civil Rights Cases in which some Acts were invalid because they addressed social as opposed to civil rights. Although Congress responded with legislation that led to the Civil Rights Act of 1866, States kept on the books laws that continued the legacy of the black codes which were established by white Southerners, seeking to control the freedom of the 4 million black Southerners former slaves and, therefore, second-class citizenship were imposed for the newly freed slaves; being that they were landless and with little money to support themselves. Furthermore, the Court noted that the Fourteenth Amendment protected people against violations of their civil rights by states, not by the actions of individuals. It was aimed to provide the means for the Southern states to recognize that African American and Whites can live in harmony, together, without slavery. That was President Hayes, who in 1877 thought, that it was a new Era having new feelings for respecting each other, but the Southern states did not welcome this. In that same year, South Carolina’s Governor Hampton promoted the full equal protection right to blacks and whites. All good intention to change the

For quite a long time, women have wanted to receive the same treatment as men. When African American men were able to vote, women wanted to be able to vote as well. When World War II was in progress, women would work in the factories while their husbands, brothers and fathers were fighting in the war. Women were tired of being treated differently and not having the same rights as men, so they wanted to conceive an amendment that would force people to treat them as equally as men and anyone else. This amendment was called the Equal Rights Amendment. On March 22, 1972, the equal rights amendment, E.R.A., was passed by the United States Senate and was sent to the states for ratification. Thirty states ratified the amendment but then a

In the year 1923, Alice Paul, a famous suffragette, proposed an amendment to the Congress of the United States of America that would explicitly require the United States government to treat men and women equally. This proposed amendment, commonly referred to by the masses as the Equal Rights Amendment, reads as the following:

In 1863, Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address defined the American government as an institution “of the people, by the people, [and] for the people”. Lincoln had an idealistic view of the government as an instrument for societal change. He, as well as the founding fathers, intended for the government to act in support of the people’s will or the majority rule. This democratic definition of the government has remained true throughout the course of American history. By placing all of its power on its citizens, the government itself did not decide the course of history but rather followed it. This follower mindset is seen through the government’s positive interactions with marginalized groups’ who in their attempts to overcome exclusion gained

only defense as his employer, is that under the Title VII, I must try to reasonably accommodate

Americans and even immigrants are afforded their basic civil rights based on the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The act, which was signed into law on July 2, 1964, declared all discrimination for any reason based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin will be deemed illegal in the United States (National Park Service, n.d.). When the act was enacted, people had to become more open minded; more accepting to the various cultures and backgrounds of individuals. Understanding that concept leads to the notion that there is and will be a diverse population within the United States. Diversity, as defined by the Cambridge dictionary, is the condition or fact of being different or varied (Cambridge Dictionary, n.d.). Diversity is also

Title VII of the Civils Rights Act of 1964 is a U.S. federal law that prohibits employers from discriminating against employees on the basis of sex, race, color, national origin, and religion. Title V11 applies to private and public universities, local, state and federal governments, labor organizations and employment agencies. Today, the conversation surrounding discrimination has increasingly been based on race and gender and has emerged as an issues that many employers are trying to address in workforce development. Unfortunately, there are other groups that have similar attention or protection under U.S. laws and if so, they are still facing discrimination. LGBT employees are a group that has received minimal attention when it

Based on the incidents Kim experienced, her lawyer should examine her situation as it pertains to the employment protections and regulations within Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Title VII prohibits public and private employers from discriminating against employees based on national origin, race, color, religion, and gender. These anti-discrimination guidelines apply in every step of the employment process, from the initial recruitment and interviewing to terminating employment. In Kim’s case, her lawyer should examine both Kim’s allegations of employment discrimination and sexual harassment pursuant to Title VII regulations.

An abundant of federal, state, and local regulations prohibit discrimination in employment. Discrimination towards employees who are members of a protected class is prohibited throughout the entire employment process, which includes outreach, hiring, job classification, salary, benefits, promotion, discipline, layoffs, termination, and much more. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is a federal statute created to safeguard individuals from illegal discrimination on the basis of race, religion, color, sex, and national origin. This Act also established the Equal Employment Opportunity Commision (EEOC) which is responsible for administering laws outlawing discrimination in the workplace and has expanded protected classes against discrimination. Such

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was considered to many ones of the crowning legislative

In July 02, 1964 was signed the Civil Rights Act. The time when this act was signed many of the provisions of the Civil Rights Acts of 1875 were passed into law in the 1960’s meaning with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Fair Housing Act using the federal power to regulate interstate commerce.

When the 1964 Civil Rights Act was enacted, women became a part of the protected group along with race, color, religion, sex or national origin. According to the Archives.gov and quoting the West Encyclopedia of American Law, (Link: https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/civil-rights-act/) sex (meaning men and women) was added by Representative Howard W. Smith hoping that it would “kill the entire bill,” arguing that it was in “support of Alice Paul and the National Women’s Party with whom he had been working.” His action was supported by Martha W. Griffiths and, as we know today, the bill was enacted into law.