Civil Rights Acts

Civil Rights Acts (USA) There have been ten major US Civil Rights Acts, nine of which were passed in the period 1957–91. The Acts were aimed at equalizing the political conditions of African Americans and White Americans. The 1957 Act began the modern cycle by creating the Civil Rights Commission, the Civil Rights Division of the US Justice Department, and the procedure whereby federal courts could enforce the voting rights of US citizens against obstructions without jury trials of obstructers. Whereas before, White Americans who had prevented African Americans from voting were often acquitted by all-White juries, from now on voting-rights offenders were no longer tried by jury. This was followed by a 1960 Act which introduced criminal sanctions for racial violence and which reinforced voting-rights protection by the courts.

The landmark of civil rights legislation was the 1964 Act. In it, the federal government acquired powers to bar racial segregation and discrimination in federally funded programmes, and establishments serving interstate commerce. Racial discrimination in employment was outlawed and an Equal Opportunities Commission created to promote affirmative action. This also benefited women, who were now protected by law from discrimination based on gender. A Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965 which implemented the Twenty-Fifth Amendment outlawing voting restrictions based on poll taxes and literacy tests, and which resulted directly in a threefold increase in African American registration in the southern states.

A 1968 Act, passed in the wake of the King assassination, outlawed racial discrimination in all but 10 per cent of the then housing space (sale and rental), and struck against racialist agitation and violence against civil rights workers and demonstrations. A 1970 Act reinforced the provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, extending its scope for five years, establishing uniform federal election residence requirements, and lowering (unconstitutionally) the voting age to 18 in all elections. In 1991, a bill allowing class action suits against employers statistically biased against women or ethnic minorities was passed over President Bush's veto, but in 1994 the Supreme Court decided that the law did not enforce an employer's liability retroactively, and only had force from 1991.

civil rights movement; Warren, Earl