1964 (July-Dec)

Bogalusa LA Movement (1964-1967)
Harlem Rebellion (July)
Civil Rights Act of 1964 (July)
The Selma Injunction (July)
Deacons for Defense Founded (July)
Lemuel Penn Murdered (July)
Integrating Americus High School (Fall)
Delta Ministry Founded in Mississippi (Sept)
SNCC Delegation to Africa (Sept-Oct)
MFDP Congressional Challenge (Fall)
King Awarded Nobel Prize (Dec)
Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States (Dec)
Scripto Strike, Atlanta (Dec)
Massive Evasion of School Integration

Bogalusa LA Movement (1964-1967)

(Description to be written.)

For more information:
Books: Louisiana, Bogalusa, & New Orleans
Web:
   Bogalusa LA Movement
   Deacons for Defense
   Louisiana Movement

Harlem Rebellion (July)

(Description of affect on Southern Freedom Movement to be written.)

Civil Rights Act of 1964 (July)

For preceding events see:
Civil Rights Bill Passes in the House
Civil Rights Bill — Battle in the Senate

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is signed into law by President Johnson on July 2nd, 1964.

Contents of the Civil Rights Act

The Act contains 10 "Titles" (subject areas):

Title I attempts to prevent unequal application of voter registration requirements. But it does not abolish or effectively counter the main methods use to deny Black voting rights such as the infamous literacy tests (see Voting Rights below).
Title II invalidates local segregation laws and outlaws discrimination in public accommodations engaged in interstate commerce (hotels, motels, restaurants, theaters, etc). "Private clubs," however, are exempted.
Title III bars segregation or discrimination on the basis of race, religion, or ethnicity in government-owned or operated facilities such as hospitals. Schools, however, are not covered.
Title IV encourages desegregation of public schools and allows the Justice Department to file desegregation lawsuits — but only if parents or students initiate a complaint (in other words, the DoJ cannot act on its own initiative). But assigning children to schools for the purpose of achieving racial balance is explicitly prohibited.
Title V expands the duties and authority of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, and clarifies its administrative procedures and policies. It also prohibits the Commission from investigating private clubs, fraternal organizations, or religious bodies.
Title VI prohibits discrimination in regards to providing access to financial assistance or other benefits by any national, state, or local government body that receives any federal funding. All races are to have equal access to crop subsidies, government loans, disaster relief, veterans benefits, scholarships, and so on. But job discrimination by private employers providing goods or services to government is not covered, and neither is discrimination on the part of government employee unions, or employment agencies who refer applicants for government jobs.
Title VII attempts to halt job discrimination by certain classes of employers on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. It sets up the Equal Empoloyment Opportunity Commission to oversee implementation of Title VII. Small employers, those not engaged in interstate commerce, national, state, and local governments, and some others are not covered. In later years prohibitions against pregnancy, age, and disability discrimination are added to Title VII. Court rulings include sexual harrasement and discrimination against homosexuals as kinds of sex discrimination. Extensive controvery and litigation over the meaning and scope of Title VII continue to this day.
Title VIII mandates compilation of voter-registration and voting data in geographic areas specified by the Commission on Civil Rights.
Title IX makes it easier to move civil rights cases from state courts with segregationist judges and all-white juries to federal court.
Title X establishes a Community Relations Service to quietly encourage racial conciliation and justice through persuasion and education. It is not permitted to engage in public investigation or court prosecutions.

Overall Effect of the Civil Rights Act

Because laws exist within a social/political environment, it is impossible to separate the specific effects of the 1964 Civil Rights Act from the influence of the Freedom Movement as a whole. Clearly, without the Movement there would have beeen no Act, without the Movement's inspiration and support few Blacks would dare implement it by patronizing formerly "white-only" establishments or sending their children to "white" schools, and without the Movement holding Washington accountable the Act would not have been enforced.

Overall, passing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 codifies a major victory for the Freedom Movement. It has been more than 80 years since any effective race-related rights legislation has been enacted on the national level, and this one was won on the streets of southern communities with blood, sweat, and tears. In the South, the Act plays a vital role in fundamentally changing people's lives for the better by helping end the "Jim Crow" system of humiliating segregation that has oppressed nonwhite Americans for generations. And to some extent the Act also improves conditions for Blacks, Latinos, Asians, Indians, and women in all parts of the country insofar as overt discrimination is concerned. But the Act does not address the issues of covert (defacto) discrimnation that are so prevalent nationwide.

The Act also greatly benefits white southerners. Under Jim Crow, the South was an economic and cultural backwater, with investment largely limited to those industries and institutions seeking the lowest possible wages and the smallest capital investment. With the end of segregation comes new investment from sources that had previously avoided the South because of its peculiar institutions, tourism expands enormously, and colleges are able to attract endowments, educators and researchers who would not have associated themselves with or become part of an apartheid society. All of which opens up new and better economic opportunities for whites even more than for Blacks.

But to win needed support from anti-regulation, pro-business Republicans in the Senate, the Act was weakened significantly from what it should have been. In the analysis below, we call attention to these inadequacies, not to negate or dismiss what was a significant victory, but to counter the myth that has grown up over the years that the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts forever ended racism, racial discrimination, racial injustice, and race disparities in the U.S.

Segregation.

Ending the Jim Crow system of overt, legally-enforced (dejure) segregation is the Act's greatest success. The Act overturns state and local segregation laws, and within a few years most "Colored" and "White-Only" signs come down across the South. Business-owners and local governments who deny equal service to Blacks are now the ones who face court, rather than Blacks who end up in jail for violating a segregation ordinance. But social customs and generations of habit change slowly. For awhile, Blacks in the Deep South who cross the color-line still face physical violence from whites, and some are arrested on phoney "Disturbing the Peace" charges.

After the Act goes into effect, it becomes riskier for politicians to incite race-hatred over integration of public accomodations (as opposed to schools). Without white-supremecist demagogs inciting boycotts and violence against businesses that dare integrate, most companies come to accept Blacks as cash-paying customers. A few firms run by die-hard segregationists continue to defy the law by maintaining separate restrooms or water-fountains or refusing to serve Blacks at all, yet by the end of the 1960s they are the exceptions to the rule. But while the end of legally-enforced segregation greatly benefits Blacks in general, it proves devastating to Black-owned businesses. Most local banks refuse to extend commercial credit to Blacks who don't have the capital to compete with white-owned companies. Across the South, many Black-owned restaurants, motels, and stores that had once provided goods and services otherwise denied to Blacks by segregation are forced out of business.

With segregation of public facilities fast dying out, campus-based civil rights groups either move on to other issues or lapse into dormancy. This accelerates SNCC's evolution from a coordinating committee of student direct-action groups to an organization of community organizers — a change that began in 1962 with the McComb Project and for practical purposes is completed in '64.

Voting Rights.

The Act has little effect on voting rights. It does not eliminate literacy tests, one of the main methods used to exclude Black voters in the South, nor does it address economic retaliation, police repression, or physical violence against nonwhite voters. The Act does require that voting rules and procedures be applied equally to all races, but it fails to challenge the pernicious notion of voter "qualification" — the idea that citizens do not have an automatic right to vote but rather have to meet some standard beyond citizenship. And the determination of who does, or does not, meet such higher standards is left in the hands of local Voter Registrars throughout the South, all of whom are white.

In the year after the Civil Rights Act is signed into law there is little significant increase in the number of Black voters in the Deep South. To win effective voting rights legislation the Freedom Movement has to fight, struggle, and die before the Voting Rights Act is passed in August of 1965.

Jobs.

For employers covered by the Act, overt, explicit, discrimination on the basis of race or sex is prohibited. Want-ads and job requirements can no longer specify "white" or "male," all occupations and promotions are (in theory) opened to all races and genders. But covert discrimination continues. Some employers claim they cannot find "qualified" Blacks, Latinos, or women, and there is much litigation over what constitutes "discrimination." To avoid legal penalties yet still retain an almost all-white or all-male workforce, many companies (and government agencies) adopt a strategy of "tokenism," hiring a few Blacks, Latinos, or women in visible positions, but limiting the number to the smallest they can get away with. Labor unions can no longer overtly use race or gender as a bar to membership, nor can they continue to maintain segregated white and "colored" locals. But in most cases you have to land the job before you can join the union. And even where that is not the case, unions are struggling to survive in an increasingly anti-labor environment and numbers are dwindling, so there are few openings for new members.

Still, income for Blacks, Latinos, Asians, Native-Americans, and women rises significantly after 1964 as more, and better, jobs become available — in part due to the Act and in part to the social dynamic created by the Freedom Movement. For example, in constant (inflation-adjusted) dollars the median income for a Black family in 1964 is a bit under $19,000, but by 2002 it is well over $33,000, an increase of 78%. In the mid-60s, 42% of all Blacks live below the poverty line, by 2002 that proportion has dropped to 24%. Average income levels for women also rise significantly, though Black and Latino women continue to lag behind white women. While women as a group continue to earn less than men, after 1964 the gap narrows, by 2003 womens' average income has come up to 80% of the mens' average. But all of these gains are primarily due to racial minorities and women entering occupations and obtaining higher-paid jobs that had previously been barred to them. The wages of traditional "colored" or "womens" work — particularly in the agriculture and service sectors — remain stagnant or actually decline in purchasing power.

Schools.

Ten years after the Brown decision, in 1964 most of the southern states still keep at least 98% of all Black students in segregated "colored" schools, no more than 2% are in integrated classes. After passage of the Act, by 1965 the number in integrated schools rises slightly to 6% and by 1967 the ratio is 22% — which still leaves 78% in segregated classes. But over the following years, Movement pressure and lawsuits filed under Title IV of the Act eventually eliminate dual "white" and "colored" school systems. And on the college level, Blacks with the grades and the money to attend are eventually admitted without regard to race.

In theory, the elimination of separate and un-equal school systems should mean that all schools are integrated. But that is not the case. In a phenomenon known as "white flight" many white parents withdraw their children from public schools (K-12) that have more than a small number of Black students. In cities with neighborhood schools they move to districts where few Blacks reside, if that is not possible, they move to predominately white suburbs which have separate local school systems. And in both rural and urban areas they establish white-only private schools, often with financial help from state and local government. As a result, most Black children continue to attend schools that are overwhelmingly Black and chronically underfunded.

For Movement activists, school integration is a means not an end — the goal is quality education for Black children. The theory is that so long as Blacks are in separate segregated schools, education boards and budgets controlled by whites will not provide adequate funding, but if Black and white children are in the same schools the same funding will apply to all. That was the theory. But with "white flight," that does not occur. Today, predominantly white suburban school systems have far more resources than overwhelmingly Black city systems. And in rural areas of the South where Blacks are numerous, public schools are mostly Black because white students are in private academies — and white voters resist paying taxes for schools their children don't attend.

Still, despite "white flight" and chronic underfunding, Black students in the South today do receive a better education than they did under the old Jim Crow system — or at least a longer education. In 1964 only 25% of southern Black adults have a high school diploma, by 2003 that number has risen to 80%. Nationwide, in 1964 there are only 300,000 Blacks attending college, in 2002 there are 2,300,000, an increase of 660%.

But while the eventual ending of separate and unequal school systems does benefit Black children, Black educators are not so fortunate. When the separate school systems are eventually combined it is mostly the Black teachers and administrators who lose their jobs. And in many cases these are the teachers who believe in the Black students' abilities and demand that they perform.

See Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States for continuation.

For more information:

The Selma Injunction (July)

See Freedom Day in Selma for preceding events.

After the high point of Freedom Day in October of 1963, Movement activity in Selma begins to ebb. The arrests, trials, and lack of bail money make it difficult for students to continue direct-action protests. As in Mississippi, the economic terrorism of the White Citizens Council takes a heavy toll of firings and evictions. Attendance at the weekly mass meetings of the Dallas County Voters League (DCVL) begins to dwindle. SNCC is forced out of its rented office, and has to operate clendestinely from the facilities of the Fathers of St. Edmund, a Jesuit order led by Father Ouellet. SNCC organizers Prathia Hall, Worth Long, John Love, Mary Varela, Silas Norman, and others carry on, but SNCC's limited resources are stretched thin, and most of its meagre funds and the majority its activists are focused on the struggle in Mississippi.

In the community, even the most dedicated Movement supporters are becoming discouraged at the lack of tangible success. All but a few of those who apply to register are denied. The Department of Justice files lawsuit after lawsuit, which they win in the courts, but the legal victories have no noticible effect — the white power structure continues to prevent Blacks from voting. When the Lafayettes came to Selma at the end of 1962, roughly 150 of the 15,000 eligible Blacks were registered to vote (1%), after two years of struggle, endurance, sacrifice, arrests, beatings, firings, and lawsuits, only 335 are registered (2%). As Justice Department official John Doar reports:

"[Even though] the litigation method of correction has been tried harder here than anywhere else in the South, [Dallas County Blacks stil have not been provided with] the most fundamental of their constitutional rights — the right to vote."

But with enactment of the Civil Rights Act in July, there is a sudden upsurge in hope. On Saturday, July 4, SNCC activist Silas Norman and 3 others attempt to implement the new law by desegregating the Thirsty Boy drive-in. A crowd of whites attack them, and they are arrested for "Tresspass." At the movie theatre, Black students come down from the "Colored" balcony to the white-only main floor. They are also attacked and beaten by whites. The cops close the theatre — there will be no integration in Selma, no matter what some Federal law in Washington says.

Sunday evening there is a large mass meeting — the first big turnout in several months. Sheriff Clark declares the meeting a "riot." Fifty deputies and possemen attack with clubs and tear gas. Monday, July 6, is one of the two monthly voter registration days. SNCC Chairman John Lewis leads a column of voter applicants to the Courthouse. They hope that the new law will offer them some protection, but Clark herds 50 them into an alley and places them under arrest. As they are marched through the downtown streets to the county jail, the deputies and possemen jab them with clubs and burn them with cattle prods.

On July 9, Judge James Hare issues an injunction forbidding any gathering of 3 or more people under sponsorship of SNCC, SCLC, or DCVL as organizations, or with the involvement of 41 named leaders including SNCC organizers, the Boyntons, Marie Foster, Rev. L.L. Anderson, Rev. F.D. Reese, and others. In essence, this injunction makes it illegal to even talk to more than two people at a time about civil rights or voter registration in Selma Alabama. And because it is an injunction rather than a law, Judge Hare can jail anyone who — in his sole opinion — violates it. And he can do so without the fuss, bother, and expense of a jury trial.

Activists and their attorneys file appeals. They know that at some bright day in the distant future the blatantly unconstitutional order will eventually be overturned by a higher court. But here and now it paralyzes the Movement. Neither DCVL nor SNCC have the resources — human, financial, legal — to defy the injuction with large-scale civil disobedience. The weekly mass meetings are halted, SNCC organizing is driven deep underground, and a pall of discouragement saps voter registration attempts. For the next 6 months there is not a single public Movement event in Selma — not until January 2nd, 1965, when Dr. King and SCLC challenge the injuction by calling a mass meeting to kick off the Voting Rights Campaign of 1965.

See Selma Voting Rights Campaign & March to Montgomery for continuation.

For more information:
Books: Selma Voting Rights Campaign & March to Montgomery
Web: Selma Voting Rights Campaign & March to Montgomery
Personal stories of the Selma Movement: Charles Bonner & Betty Fikes