1964: Civil Rights Act of 1964

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• Background Info
• Vocabulary

• On July 2, 1964, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, calling on U.S. citizens to “eliminate the last vestiges of injustice in America.” The act became the most sweeping civil rights legislation of the century.

   

  The Civil Rights Act provided legal recourse for discrimination in schools, public facilities, and conflict resolution. Its section on voting rights was strengthened a year later by the Voting Rights Act.

   

  Although majorities in both parties supported the Civil Rights Act, its passage altered the political loyalty of many areas in the South, where opposition to the law was strongest. The South had traditionally supported the Democratic Party, but became a Republican stronghold within 20 years of the act’s passage. 

   

  “I know the risks are great, and we might lose the South, but those sorts of states may be lost anyway,” said Johnson, a native Texan.

• Term	Part of Speech	Definition	Encyclopedic Entry
  alter	Verb	to change.
  citizen	Noun	member of a country, state, or town who shares responsibilities for the area and benefits from being a member.
  civil rights	Plural Noun	set of fundamental freedoms guaranteed to all individuals, such as participation in the political system, ability to own property, and due process and equal protection under the law.
  conflict resolution	Noun	theory and practice of bringing peaceful end to conflicts.
  discrimination	Noun	treatment based on a group to which a person belongs, not the person himself.
  eliminate	Verb	to remove.
  legal	Adjective	allowed by law.
  legislation	Noun	law, legal act, or statute.
  loyalty	Noun	faithfulness or consistency.
  political	Adjective	having to do with public policy, government, administration, or elected office.
  public	Adjective	available to an entire community, not limited to paying members.
  recourse	Noun	access to help or protection.
  South	Noun	loosely defined geographic region largely composed of states that supported or were sympathetic to the Confederate States of America (Confederacy) during the U.S. Civil War.
  sweeping	Adjective	overwhelming and wide-ranging.
  traditionally	Adverb	historically, or established by custom.
  vestige	Noun	hint or trace evidence.
  voting rights	Noun	issues surrounding the legal right and ability to campaign and cast a vote in political elections.
  Voting Rights Act	Noun	(1965) American legislation outlawing practices designed to prevent eligible voters from voting.