Info Brief: The Civil Rights Movement, Landmark Civil Rights Laws, and the LBJ Presidency (article) | Khan Academy (2024)

The long Civil Rights Movement culminated in two of the most important laws in American history: the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

With the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Congress attacked racial discrimination in a variety of settings, including work, schools, and public settings (like restaurants and hotels). Congress passed this law under its Article I power to regulate interstate commerce, but it can also be understood as realizing the promise of the Reconstruction Amendments.

Shortly after Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Supreme Court considered a challenge to its constitutionality—Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States (1964). There, a motel owner refused to rent rooms to African Americans, arguing that the Civil Rights Act exceeded Congress’s Commerce Clause powers.

The Warren Court—in an opinion by Justice Tom Clark—upheld the Act. As the Court explained, Congress was clear that the key purpose behind the Act was to end “the deprivation of personal dignity that surely accompanies denials of equal access to public establishments.” Evidence showed that discrimination by race burdened interstate commerce in an increasingly mobile society—having both a quantitative and qualitative effect on interstate travel by African Americans. Under well-established doctrine, Congress’s power under the Commerce Clause was simply a question of whether the activity sought to be regulated was commerce “which concerns more states than one” and has a “real and substantial relation to the national interest.” In the end, Congress could regulate local activities that had a substantial and harmful effect on interstate commerce, including racial discrimination in motels serving travelers.

Furthermore, in Katzenbach v. McClung, the Warren Court upheld another section of the Act—banning racial discrimination in restaurants. There, Ollie’s Barbeque was a Birmingham, Alabama, restaurant seating 220 customers located on a state highway only 11 blocks from the interstate. The owner, Ollie McClung, argued that his business was too small and purchased so little food that crossed state lines that his business’s effect on interstate commerce was too minimal to allow Congress to regulate it.

In another opinion by Justice Clark, the Court concluded that while McClung’s business had little effect on interstate commerce by itself, the racial discrimination in the restaurant—when aggregated with similar actions by other business owners—did have a significant effect on interstate commerce. Clark concluded that such discrimination had a “direct and highly restrictive effect upon interstate travel” by African Americans. Therefore, the Civil Rights Act was constitutional in this context important context, too.

The Civil Rights Movement, “Bloody Sunday,” and the Voting Rights Act of 1965

In this push, SNCC and its allies organized “Freedom Summer”—an effort to register African American voters throughout the South. The campaign focused on Mississippi. Under the leadership of SNCC activist Bob Moses, the four major civil rights organizations—SNCC, CORE, the NAACP, and the SCLC—spread out across the state to conduct a major voter registration drive.

However, the opposition was so strong that they managed to register only 1,200 new African American voters. At the same time, three civil rights workers were murdered, and 37 black churches were burned. But the Civil Rights Movement kept fighting.

The Civil Rights Movement’s push for voting rights culminated in “Bloody Sunday” and, eventually, with the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Dr. King and the SCLC remained committed to voting rights. Civil rights leaders thought that another confrontation with Southern injustice might spur congressional action on this front. To that end, they called for a march from Selma, Alabama, to the state capital in Montgomery.

This march was organized to protest the murder of a voting rights activist. As soon as the 600 marchers left Selma and crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge, state troopers assaulted them—using tear gas and clubs. The late John Lewis was one of the marchers—and he would bear the scars of violence from that day throughout his life.

Once again, the scene was caught by national television cameras. It became known as “Bloody Sunday.”

The Civil Rights Movement’s push for voting rights culminated in one of its landmark achievements—the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Congress passed the VRA under powers granted to it by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. The VRA created mechanisms to enforce the Fifteenth Amendment’s ban on racial discrimination in voting—most notably “preclearance,” a requirement that certain states with poor voting rights histories obtain national permission before altering their voting laws.

The VRA included a formula for determining which states and counties needed to get preclearance to change their election practices. So, preclearance didn’t apply everywhere. Only some states and counties were required to seek approval before changing election policies, based on their history of discrimination in voting. This was strong constitutional medicine—providing the national government with an important new role in protecting voting rights and attacking Jim Crow laws discriminating against African Americans.

Shortly after Congress passed the VRA, the Supreme Court considered a challenge to the VRA’s constitutionality brought by South Carolina—South Carolina v. Katzenbach. The Supreme Court—in an opinion authored by Chief Justice Earl Warren—rejected South Carolina’s challenge and upheld the VRA’s preclearance requirement as a valid exercise of Congress’s power to enforce the Fifteenth Amendment.

The Court concluded that the Fifteenth Amendment gave Congress “full remedial powers” to ban racial discrimination in voting. On the Court’s view, the VRA was a “legitimate response” to the “insidious and pervasive evil” of the Jim Crow laws that prevented African Americans from voting since the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870. And when they framed and ratified the Fifteenth Amendment, the Reconstruction generation made Congress “chiefly responsible” for enforcing its promise to ban racial discrimination in voting.

The VRA was a monumental success. For instance, in 1960, only 20% of eligible African American voters were registered to vote. By 1971, the number had risen to 62%. At the same time, African American elected officials quadrupled— from 1,400 in 1970 to 4,900 in 1980 (and doubling again by the early 1990s).

Of course, the 1960s would not be the end of either monumental legislation or major Supreme Court cases concerning the fight for equality and civil rights. That battle continues through today.

The Supreme Court recently returned to the issue of the VRA’s constitutionality in Shelby County v. Holder. When the VRA was passed in 1965, the preclearance provision was set to expire after five years. But Congress extended its life in 1970, 1975, and 1982, and then for an additional 25 years in 2006.

In Shelby County, the challengers argued that the VRA used an outdated formula for determining which states and localities were covered by the preclearance requirement and that the formula violated the Constitution. In a 5-4 ruling authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, the Supreme Court agreed.

The Court struck down the VRA’s preclearance formula. The Court concluded that this provision exceeded the scope of Congress’s power under the 14th and 15th Amendments. The Court determined that the 2006 extension was unconstitutional because the coverage formula was based on data about racial discrimination from the 1970s and had not been changed since 1982. So, it was based on very old data. The Court observed that the South had changed a great deal since the pre-VRA Jim Crow days.

While the VRA had done its job in its own day—attacking racial discrimination in voting—it remained strong constitutional medicine, in tension with the states’ traditional authority to determine their own voting rules. Under these circ*mstances, the Court concluded that the selective application of the preclearance requirement ran afoul of what it described as “‘a fundamental principle of equal sovereignty’ among the States.” As a result, the VRA’s preclearance mechanism can’t be enforced unless Congress passes a new coverage formula.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented—joined by Justices Breyer, Kagan, and Sotomayor. Justice Ginsburg argued that the VRA fell within Congress’s power to protect against racial discrimination in voting under the 14th and 15th Amendments.

In her view, the 15th Amendment’s text and history show a commitment to attacking racial discrimination at the ballot box. The Court’s previous decisions—including Katzenbach—confirmed Congress’s broad powers to enforce the 15th Amendment’s commands. The VRA has worked—defeating Jim Crow, transforming voting (especially in the South), and increasing African American voter participation. And Congress was careful when it decided to reauthorize the VRA in an overwhelming, bipartisan vote in 2006.

Ginsburg: “Throwing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.”