The Causes Of The Civil Rights Act Of 1964

For decades, African Americans were looked down on from their white allies. But on Sunday, March 8th, 1964, when Senator Hubert Humphrey appeared on the NBC news program Meet the Press to discuss the civil rights bill, many African Americans had hope that something was about to change. Since 1937, several Southern senators had prevented eleven civil rights bills from coming up for a vote in the Senate. But now, the civil rights bill had been approved by the House of Representatives and was sent to the Senate to be debated. For four months, February to June of 1964 legislators who supported of H.R. 7152 (final House vote on the Civil Rights Act 1964) tried to persuade more than sixty-seven senators to vote for cloture. This would be the first …show more content…
Many of the senators believed that if African Americans were desegregated, it would ruin the United States and destroy the Constitution. Some senators referred to the African Americans as their “own kind.” Also, many of the senators did not talk about how racial discrimination was evil, but instead picked at parts of the bill such as, how desegregation would ruin people’s businesses and how it would ruin public accommodations. Lastly, the senators were more concerned about if the bill was passed, how it would ruin their political career. Many of the senators reminded other senators about the rules the senate has and one senator reminded the people he was concerned about their well-being. Overall, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, but there were many flaws in the