Civil Rights Act of 1964

Enacted on July 2, 1964—in the year after President John F. Kennedy's assassination; the bloody campaign to integrate Birmingham, Alabama; and the first March on Washington, which featured Martin Luther King Jr.'s “I Have a Dream” Speech—the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was the most important piece of civil rights legislation passed since the Reconstruction era. It outlawed discrimination on a number of bases, including race, color, religion, national origin, and, with respect to employment, sex. Also of importance was the breadth of areas in which discrimination was outlawed, as the act prohibited discrimination in places of public accommodations, public facilities, federally assisted programs, employment, and voting. It also pushed for the full desegregation of schools and expanded the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, which had been created by the Civil Rights Act of 1957. Last, the 1964 act created institutions for monitoring and facilitating the advancement of civil rights, such as the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, to enforce Title VII of the act, and the Community Relations Service, to assist “communities and persons therein in resolving disputes, disagreements, or difficulties relating to discriminatory practices based on race, color, or national origin.”