Explain The Significance Of The Civil Rights Act Of 1964

2. Explain the significance of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Exactly five days after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, President Johnson took an unsuspected and progressive stance against the deprivation of civil rights. He called for legislative action to address the issue, calling for Congress to draft a bill, stating “We have talked long enough about equal rights in this country” (Foner 972). A few months later, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, which “…prohibited racial discrimination in employment, institutions…, and privately owned public accommodations” (Foner 972), in addition to banning discrimination based on one’s sex. The Civil Rights Act was a major victory for both the Civil Rights
The Civil Rights Act, however, did not address the restriction black southerners faced when it came to registering to vote. But following the death of two white civil rights campaigners during the Freedom Summer, which was an effort to increase black voter registration in the state of Mississippi, and increasing violence against protesters, the federal government felt no choice but to intervene. A year after the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act was passed, which “…allowed federal officials to register voters” (Foner 976) and targeted Southern laws that aimed to prevent the registration of African American voters. Finally, Southern African Americans were able to exercise their rights guaranteed to them by the Fifteenth Amendment almost a hundred years earlier, and the asinine restrictive laws conjured up by white supremacists were outlawed. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, together, provided the rights and liberties African Americans had fought so long for. Despite not ending the Civil Rights Movement, both pieces of legislation played
The Great Society, much like Roosevelt’s New Deal, aim was to promote the positive welfare for American citizens. Outcomes of the program includes the establishment of programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, which “…provided health services to the poor and elderly” (Foner 977), the creation of food stamps, and the government’s financial support of public education and urban development. The government’s power and influence were also increased, especially with the creation of “…the Departments of Transportation and of Housing and Urban Development” (Foner 977) and new agencies, with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission being an example. In addition to the Great Society’s attempt to supply a decent quality of life, the War on Poverty was also introduced, whose goal was to eliminate poverty in the United States. Overall, the War on Poverty did not address the direct issues that contributed to growing poverty and failed to come up with solutions such as “…guaranteeing annual income for all Americans, creating jobs for the unemployed, promoting the spread of unionization, or making it more difficult for businesses to shift production to the low-wage South or overseas” (Foner 978). It did, however, provide “…Head Start (an early childhood education program), job