9 Sept 1957 Jahr - Civil Rights Act of 1957

Beschreibung:

The Civil Rights Act of 1957 (Pub. L. 85-315, 71 Stat. 634) was the first federal civil rights law passed by the United States Congress since the Civil Rights Act of 1875. The bill was passed by the 85th United States Congress and signed into law by President Dwight D. Eisenhower on September 9, 1957.

The Supreme Court's 1954 ruling in the case of Brown v. Board of Education brought the issue of school desegregation to the fore of public attention, as Southern Democratic leaders began a campaign of "massive resistance" against desegregation. In the midst of this campaign, President Eisenhower proposed the bill to provide federal protection for African American voting rights; most African Americans in the Southern United States had been disenfranchised by state and local laws. Though the bill passed Congress, opponents of the act were able, in the Senate, to remove stringent voting protection clauses via the Anderson–Aiken amendment and the O'Mahoney jury trial amendment, significantly watering down its immediate impact. During the debate over the law, Senator Strom Thurmond conducted the longest one-person filibuster in Senate history at the time. Under the direction of Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas, the Senate passed the watered-down version of the House bill.

Despite having a limited impact on African American voter participation, the Civil Rights Act of 1957 did establish the United States Commission on Civil Rights and the United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division. Congress would later pass far more effective civil rights laws in the form of the Civil Rights Act of 1960, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Civil Rights Act of 1968.

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