Hours after the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed the House of Representatives on July 2, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson entered the East Room of the White House.
Johnson called the act a “proud triumph” in a “long struggle for freedom” and quest for equal rights for Black people in America.“We believe that all men are created equal,” Johnson said. “Yet many are denied equal treatment. We believe that all men have certain unalienable rights. Yet many Americans do not enjoy those rights. We believe that all men are entitled to the blessings of liberty.
Its passage had been a long time coming for Johnson. In 1957, when Johnson was Senate majority leader, he’d engineered passage of the 1957 Civil Rights Act, which, according to theThree years later, Johnson brokered passage of the 1960 Civil Rights Act, which had little enforcement power. Eight days later, on June 19, 1963, Kennedy sent a comprehensive bill for civil rights to Congress. “But fierce opposition caused the bill to stall for several months,” according to the King Institute at Stanford University.Political pressure for civil rights intensified. On Aug. 28, 1963, more than 250,000 people rallied in the March on Washington to demand jobs, economic justice, voting rights and equal protection under the law.“We’ve come to our nation’s capital to cash a check,” King said.
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