Why was the Civil Rights Act passed in 1964 by the US congress?
Slavery in America was abolished by the 13th Amendment in 1865 following the end of the Civil War, but black Americans never gained equality with white Americans until the Civil Rights Act was actually passed. The Ku Klux Klan, revived in the 1920s, was a racist group that made their belief in the lack of equality between blacks and whites known through marches, beatings and the lynching of black Americans. America was now one of the most racist countries in the world. By the 1960s, views were beginning to change.
The 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to the constitution had abolished slavery, defined US citizenship and forbade laws infringing citizen’s rights and forbade laws denying citizens the vote based on race or colour. Whites in the southern states were not happy and set upon finding a loophole in the Amendments. The Jim Crow laws declared black Americans as “separate but equal” meaning white Americans could get away with separating blacks and whites completely throughout everyday life. To stop black Americans voting, white Americans in authority placed tasks around registering that were either rigged making it impossible for blacks to pass, or just something a black American simply could not achieve. It was the Plessy vs. Ferguson case that first found it’s way through the 3 racial based amendments using the “separate but equal” law in schools, but things soon escalated to black Americans having separate restaurants, parks, public toilets, transport and school as white Americans. Not only were their facilities separates, but they much differed in quality. America needed something else.