Civil Rights

"All my life I've been sick and tired, and now I'm just sick and tired of being sick and tired. No one can honestly say Negroes are satisfied. We've only been patient, but how much more patience can we have?" Mrs. Hamer said these words in 1964, a month and a day before the historic Civil Rights Act of 1964 would be signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was one of the most extreme controversies in American history. Besides from being an important step to equality, it was also hope for all of those who fell victim to discrimination during the times of segregation. Blacks in the South were discriminated against repeatedly while laws did nothing to protect their individual rights. The bill was passed on July 2, 1964; it has historically significant because it stands as a defining piece of civil rights legislation, and being the first time the national government had declared equality for blacks. Discrimination is a problem of ethics meaning discrimination is unethical. The government has an ethical obligation to make and change laws to ensure that it does not discriminate against African American or anyone not of white decent. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is perhaps the best example there is of the American government fulfilling its ethical obligation (Ash 803).

Our Constitution is color blind ...but the practices of the country do not always conform to the principles of the Constitution... Equality before the law has not always meant equal treatment and opportunity. And the harmful, wasteful and wrongful results of racial discrimination and segregation still appear in virtually every aspect of national life, in virtually every part of the nation (Loevy, 5). Revolutionary might be a strong term for the act, an accomplishment that was born in the government system, but it became a powerful tool for liberation (Shipler 12).

Civil rights in America began with the adoption of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the...