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The Obscure Heroes behind Congress’s Great Moment How Midwestern Republicans, not just an arm-twisting LBJ, helped pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964 By David J. Garrow
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n Tuesday July 2, 1963, Assistant After Marshall landed in Dayton Attorney General Burke Marshall on July 2, a young man drove him 30 Ocaught an early morning flight minutes north to the small town of to Dayton, Ohio. Six days before, Mar- Piqua, where his father-in-law kept a shall’s boss, Attorney General Robert F. law office. The father-in-law was U.S. Kennedy, had appeared before a House Representative William McCulloch, a Judiciary Subcommittee to present the 61-year-old conservative Republican newly introduced civil-rights bill that who for 15 years had held a safe seat Rep. William McCulloch his brother, President John F. Kennedy, and had risen to be the ranking minor- had committed himself to enacting ity member on the House Judiciary during a powerful nationwide televi- Committee. Marshall and the admin- the immediate desegregation of all sion address on June 11. istration’s other leading civil-rights public accommodations, including The Kennedy brothers’ outspo- strategist, Deputy Attorney General restaurants, motels, and stores. Two ken attachment to advancing racial Nicholas Katzenbach, appreciated other provisions, Titles VI and VII, equality was entirely newfound. For that any chance of passing the Kenne- would within several years’ time force the first two years of the Kennedy dy civil-rights bill depended upon two the desegregation of Southern public administration, civil-rights activists Republicans: McCulloch and Senate schools and the integration of indus- had been repeatedly disappointed by Minority Leader Everett Dirksen of trial workforces across the South. the brothers’ unwillingness to live up Illinois. That understanding was what to the promises John Kennedy had had led Marshall to Piqua. McCulloch The undeviatingly bipartisan path voiced during the 1960 presidential was a veteran of Congress’s passage through that pivotal year had been campaign. Only the horrific violence of two largely innocuous civil-rights sealed in Piqua. Marshall and Katzen- visited upon interracial groups of bills in 1957 and 1960, when stronger An Idea Whose bach knew that McCulloch, along with “Freedom Riders” in May 1961, as they House measures had been watered Time Has Come: House Minority Leader Charles Hal- Two Presidents, sought desegregation of interstate bus down in order to achieve Senate pas- Two Parties, leck of Indiana, another conservative stations, and white racists’ attacks sage and win supposed Democratic and the Battle for Republican, would be more crucial upon federal officers during the Octo- victories. Those painful experiences the Civil Rights allies than aging Judiciary Commit- ber 1962 desegregation of the Uni- led him to voice two simple demands. Act of 1964 tee chair Emanuel Celler of Brook- versity of Mississippi, had forced the McCulloch would support the admin- by Todd S. Purdum lyn or the distant House speaker, Kennedys to take decisive yet short- istration’s muscular bill so long as Henry Holt John McCormack of Massachusetts. lived action to support racial change. Marshall promised that what the Onlookers unaware of the Marshall- In May 1963, civil-rights demonstra- House approved would not again be McCulloch pact, including The New tors in Birmingham, Alabama—or, traded away in the Senate and that if York Times’ congressional correspon- more precisely, city Public Safety Com- the bill did become a law, the Kennedy dent and the Senate Democrats’ top missioner Eugene “Bull” Connor’s use brothers—with the next presidential staffer, opined that there was virtually of high-pressure fire hoses and snarling election just 16 months away—would no chance of Congress passing a pow- police dogs against them—put Southern give Republicans equal credit. Mar- erful desegregation bill. Even after segregationist violence on the nation’s shall readily agreed, the two men the March on Washington occurred front pages and evening news broad- shook hands, and Marshall headed on August 28, 1963, with a quarter- casts day after day as never before. Until back to Washington. million upbeat participants and nary a then, neither Kennedy brother had The most important day trip in hitch, conventional wisdom continued shown any serious interest in putting American history, as Marshall’s excur- The Bill of the to dismiss the bill’s chances. forward significant civil-rights legisla- sion might be called, set the stage for Century: the Epic Most narratives of the bill’s progress tion, but within the space of a few weeks a presidential signing ceremony that Battle for the move next to the immediate aftermath first Robert and then John changed took place 365 days later: On July 2, Civil Rights Act of John Kennedy’s assassination on his thinking, and the president’s June 1964, John Kennedy’s successor, Lyn- by Clay Risen November 22, 1963, but Clay Risen’s 11 televised speech conveyed the depth don B. Johnson, signed the Civil Rights Bloomsbury Press valuable history of the law’s passage, of that change to civil-rights support- Act of 1964 into law. The bill’s most The Bill of the Century: The Epic Bat-
bob schutz / ap images ers and opponents alike. famous provision, Title II, mandated tle for the Civil Rights Act, draws
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The official report that is helping shape the international debate attention to two conferences in sup- Democrats in voting against it. port of the bill that the National Coun- From there the measure moved to The NSA Report cil of Churches (NCC) convened in the Senate, where Katzenbach and Liberty and Security in a Changing World Lincoln, Nebraska, and Des Moines, Marshall’s closest ally, liberal Min- The President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Iowa, in early September 1963. Many nesota Democrat Hubert Humphrey, accounts of 1960s congressional poli- shared their appreciation that the Communications Technologies: Richard A. Clarke, tics cite both NAACP lobbyist Clarence key was Republican Minority Leader Michael J. Morell, Geoffrey R. Stone, Cass R. Sunstein Mitchell and Leadership Council for Dirksen. Humphrey also understood & Peter Swire Civil Rights and United Auto Workers that civil-rights lobbyists Mitchell attorney Joseph L. Rauh, an irrepress- and Rauh had to be kept at arm’s “A remarkably thorough and well- ible liberal, as significant behind-the- length and that the most influential reasoned report calling on the government to end its bulk phone-data scenes players, but both Risen’s book outside pressure would come from the collection program and to increase both and Todd Purdum’s An Idea Whose church groups and clergy members, the transparency and accountability of Time Has Come: Two Presidents, Two especially those from the home states surveillance programs.” Parties, and the Battle for the Civil of conservative Republicans. —New York Times Rights Act of 1964 rightly credit the Everett McKinley Dirksen was a NCC and other affiliated religious vain, florid, and hard-drinking politi- “[The] recommendations take aim at activists as being far and away the cian, but above all he was a politician some of the most controversial practices most important voices calling upon aware of how history would judge of the intelligence community.” members of Congress to act. him, and even before John Kennedy’s —Washington Post Their importance was rooted in the death he had intimated to Katzen-
Paper $16.95 political fact that conservative Mid- bach that in the end, the bill would western and Great Plains Republicans receive his backing. Many Senate would be decisive to the bill’s fate in aides were unable to imagine how the See our E-Books at the House and even more so in the 67 votes necessary to shut down the press.princeton.edu Senate. With a significant proportion segregationist senators’ inevitable fili- of congressional Democrats hailing buster could be obtained, but on April from Southern states whose racially 21 Dirksen privately told Humphrey discriminatory voter-registration that, with some changes, the bill had practices meant that elected officials his support. Intensive private negotia- answered to almost entirely white tions between Dirksen, Katzenbach, electorates, majority coalitions to and various aides took place in early support the bill would require doz- May, and on May 26 Dirksen intro- ens of Republicans. That reality led duced the revamped bill, whose mod- Marshall and Katzenbach to oppose est changes reflected Dirksen’s ego civil-rights proponents’ efforts to rather than substantive alterations. strengthen the bill in Celler’s com- With the bill on the Senate floor, all mittee beyond what could pass on the eyes turned toward whether enough House floor and in the Senate. When conservative Republicans, plus a President Johnson used his initial handful of conservative Western speech to a joint session of Congress Democrats, would vote to end debate to declare that “no memorial oration on the bill, or for “cloture” in the Sen- or eulogy could more eloquently honor ate’s unique parlance, thus effectively President Kennedy’s memory than passing the bill. Nationally obscure the earliest passage of the civil-rights senators like Iowa Republican Bourke bill for which he fought so long,” the Hickenlooper held the balance, and measure’s national prominence was in case after case the religious groups’ further elevated, and within weeks ardent support for racial equality crucial Republican support fell into proved decisive. When the penulti- place in the House. mate vote for cloture was called on On February 10, 1964, with Wil- June 10—with CBS News correspon- liam McCulloch as the floor general, dent Roger Mudd providing a nation- the House of Representatives passed ally televised vote-by-vote tally from the bill by a vote of 290 to 130. More just outside the Capitol—proponents instructive than the overwhelming prevailed with four votes to spare, margin, however, was the composi- 71 to 29. Only six Republicans voted Available on Amazon and Kindle tion of the majority: 138 Republicans no, including the party’s upcoming www.callaliliesatruestory.com backed the bill along with 152 Demo- presidential nominee, Arizona’s Barry crats; only 34 Republicans joined 96 Goldwater, whose opposition would
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contribute heavily to his landslide November loss to Lyndon Johnson. On July 2, 1964, with congressional proponents and civil-rights leaders in attendance, Johnson signed the act into law. Title II’s prohibition of segre- gated facilities took immediate effect, and across the South compliance was widespread though not instantly unanimous. Several years later, when McCulloch’s declining health forced him to announce his retirement from Congress, a most unlikely correspon- dent wrote to praise him for what she called “the shining gift of your nobil- ity.” Presidential widow Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis was never known for overt political involvement, yet she told McCulloch that “I know that you, more than anyone, were responsible for the civil rights legislation” that she, like the rest of the world, viewed as her late husband’s most indelible legacy. Risen accurately terms the 1964 U.S. Attorney General Robert act “the single most important piece of Kennedy with legislation passed in twentieth-century advisers, from America,” but the law’s passage must left: Burke be seen as a triumph of historically Marshall, Nicolas minded bipartisan cooperation as Katzenbach, and much as a landmark victory in the Norbert Schlei struggle for a nondiscriminatory world. As the 50th anniversary of the signing approaches, praise and rec- once capable of,” and if every mem- he repeatedly violates chronology in ognition for McCulloch and Dirksen Jacqueline ber of Congress, plus Barack Obama narrating some portions of the story: will be replete—as it should be too for Kennedy and various presidential staffers were In 1963 he cites events that occurred Katzenbach, Marshall, Humphrey, and required upon pain of imprisonment on April 23, April 19, May 3, May 9, Halleck. But the most obvious compar- Onassis told to read one or the other of these books, May 6, June 11, May 4, June 2, May ison cannot be avoided: How, 50 years Congressman perhaps the looming light of history’s 28, and May 7—in that order! He also from now, will history judge House judgment would dawn on even the misstates the first names, home states, Speaker John Boehner and Senate Bill McCulloch, dimmest of political bulbs. or political leanings of at least five dif- Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, or “I know Risen’s and Purdum’s accounts do ferent members of Congress. for that matter House Minority Leader that you, not differ on the fundamental lessons Yet both books present a challenge Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority we should draw from 1964’s grand not to our historical memory but to Leader Harry Reid? By the McCulloch- more than triumph. Risen correctly emphasizes today’s national political leaders, and Dirksen standard, all four not only pale anyone, were that the conventional wisdom about indeed one that directly echoes the into insignificance but merit large, the law’s passage overstates Lyndon pointed message of former Defense boldface stamps as “failures.” McCull- responsible Johnson’s direct involvement and the Secretary Robert M. Gates’s powerful och and Dirksen, with their eyes on the for the credit due him. “Johnson’s contribu- recent memoir, Duty: Are you, John historical future, rose above partisan tion to the bill’s success was largely Boehner, or you, Harry Reid, or you, loyalties and parochial limitations to civil rights symbolic,” Risen writes, and “there Barack Obama, personally capable of serve the national interest irrespective legislation” is little evidence that he did much to rising above selfish, short-term, par- of short-term political considerations. that she sway many votes.” Purdum disagrees, tisan calculations, as Bill McCulloch The most powerful lesson of these asserting that “Johnson did indeed and Everett Dirksen so famously did, two remarkably similar books is how viewed as her help round up crucial votes for clo- particularly if you stop and ponder how superior the quality of Washington husband’s ture” but that discord is modest in the history, 50 years from now, will judge political leadership was 50 years ago extreme. Risen’s is, by some margin, your time in office? That’s the question compared to today. Risen rightly calls legacy. a more acute and energetic chronicle that the bipartisan legacy of the 1964 the 1964 act “an example of what the than Purdum’s, yet Risen can intense- Civil Rights Act poses to today’s Wash-
ap images country’s legislative machinery was ly frustrate an attentive reader when ington. I’m not holding my breath.
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