 The White House, Washington, D.C., USA, the day July 2, 1964, the occasion signing into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964. We must not approach the observance and enforcement of this law in a vengeful spirit. Its purpose is not to punish. Its purpose is not to divide, but to end divisions, divisions which have lasted all too long. Its purpose is national, not regional. This Civil Rights Act is a challenge to all of us, to go to work in our communities and our states, in our homes and in our hearts, to eliminate the last vestiges of injustice in our beloved country. So, tonight I urge every public official, every religious leader, every business and professional man, every working man, every housewife, I urge every American to join in this effort to bring justice and hope to all our people and to bring peace to our land. One year has passed. Where has it gone? What has and what has not been done during that year which held such great promise? Oh, I'm Joe Rao. One year has passed since we had the President's Civil Rights Bill enacted into law. A year ago we had a program with some of the same people who are here today. Today we are here to take a look back at this one year of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and to look ahead at what may come in other areas for civil rights for all Americans. With me are Roy Wilkins, Executive Secretary, the NAACP, the National Association for the Advancement of Color People and the Chairman of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. Mr. Lee Roy Collins, who is the Director of the Community Relations Service and a former Governor of Florida who was ahead of his time on civil rights there. And Sterling Tucker, the Washington Director of the National Urban League and a very distinguished city citizen of this city of Washington where we are today. The first question, if I may ask it, it will be of you, Mr. Wilkins. When we were fighting for the Civil Rights Act of 1964, you testified on the need for fair treatment and I'll never forget that testimony and I'd like to read a sentence of it. It must be remembered that while we talk here today, while we talk last week and while the Congress will be debating in the next weeks, Negro Americans throughout our country will be bruised in nearly every waking hour by differential treatment in or exclusion from public accommodations of every description. From the time they leave their homes in the morning, all route to school or to work, to shopping or to visiting, till they return home at night, humiliation stalks them. Do you feel, Mr. Wilkins, that the first year of the Civil Rights Act under the Public Accommodation Provision has changed that situation on which you gave such eloquent testimony? I think certainly Joe Rao, it has alleviated much of it. I would say especially in the areas where the abrasiveness was most felt. We had compliances, Governor Collins well knows, in unlikely places, Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina, parts of Louisiana, the so-called hard core areas. They did have this and while all vestiges of this sort of humiliation have not by any means vanished, I think certainly after one year of the Civil Rights Act, we can say that appreciable relief has come to many Negro American citizens. Governor Collins, I was there in the White House July 2, 1964, a year ago when the bill was signed by President Johnson. And I remember vividly his first act was to appoint you to run the Community Relations Service. How do you look back on the year and on the Public Accommodation's enforcement? I was there that night too and was extremely proud. And while I didn't have anything to do with the real effort that was made to create the climate and create the acceptance by the Congress of this law, I admire greatly those of you who were and all of the others of you here on this program were. And I think that history is going to signify that the passage of this law just a year ago is really one of the great, great landmarks of progress in the development of human relations in this country. Now the President asked me to direct the Community Relations Service, which is an effort to voluntarily assist the communities in resolving disputes and disagreement and in urging and bringing about a climate of acceptance of this law and all of our laws in this country against discrimination. And I think the progress that the nation has made in the past year has been phenomenal, Mr. Rao. I think when we look back and see the difference now and a year ago that any fair-minded person will have to admit that the progress has been tremendous. An actual test that we've made and checks that we've made on compliance with this law indicate a high degree of compliance. And of course the exceptional case, the case that involves a horrible reaction and action, is the one that is projected in the newspapers and by the broadcast media in our free society. And so some people get the impression because they hear of the exceptional instance of resistance that that is normal, which is not the case. For example, down in Atlanta, Georgia, when the one restaurateur there, Mr. Maddox, was making his little speech of defiance and closing his door against Negroes coming into his restaurant. There were hundreds of restaurants in Atlanta running the same community where the proprietors had their doors extended wide and with our hand a fellowship and friendship and welcoming the patronage of Negroes along with all of our other American citizens. And there has been a fine acceptance. Now I agree with Mr. Wilkins that we certainly can't feel that we can rest on our laurels because there's so much more to be done. We must accept this as momentum to go on and do the full job and that's what the nation I think is on the way to do it. Mr. Tucker, you have had a great deal of experience with another part of the 64 law, the provision called Title VI, where the federal government's funds cannot go to anything, any program that discriminates or segregates. Has that worked? I think that perhaps in spite of the record of the public accommodations law which is perhaps section which is perhaps the most dramatic change there is, I think in the long run the real significance of the Civil Rights Act will be found in Title VI and the use of public funds. I think there are three reasons why this is especially important. One is I think that the title itself makes it a national bill where it relieves the regional character of it. It's not a bill for the self because we found that in hospitals and even in the north for instance they had Negro beds at one point and now this is all being reexamined under Title VI. I think a second thing is that while another title deals with public school desegregation, I think most desegregation is going to come under Title VI the bill. Because we found, for instance, last week that in Maryland, the state as far east as Maryland, there were 17 school districts whose desegregation plans had never been approved. And now they know that before the school opens next fall they've got to get these plans approved, you see, under this title. And eight southern governors were in Washington just a few weeks ago to seek delay in the enforcement of Title VI with reference to public school desegregation. And their congressional delegations wouldn't even see them because this has become the law of the land now. So I think that under Title VI really is where we're going to see some of the greatest change. Someone said to me recently that a hospital in Mississippi perhaps is one of the most desegregated hospitals now in the country because of the enforcement of Title VI of this act. So I think in Title VI, now I think perhaps one weakness which also might be a strength is that this is mainly administrative action. And therefore the question of the effectiveness of it will be determined by the degree of administrative determination and enforcement. Well, maybe Governor Collins, do you have any feeling about the degree of administrative determination and enforcement of Title VI? Yes, I surely do. And I would agree with Mr. Tucker that this really is a tremendously significant part of this whole law and that this will be proved in the course of time. Because under this law the federal government shows that it must practice what it preaches. And the oratory and the subscribing to the great goals and statements of ideals of this nation mean a great deal. But here the federal government is directly on the spot to practice it. And I was just as proud as I could be when I sat in a cabinet meeting not too long back and the issue was made there before the president and all the cabinet. But in some of the federal departments that there was discrimination and the president could not have made a stronger statement. And he said at that time that he expected this law to be applied in every federal agency and no matter where it was located, no matter how big or how small, that the federal government was going to see to it that these principles were applied in its own house. And he called upon every member of the cabinet and all the agencies subordinate to the cabinet and all of the federal agency, not only to comply but to report to him regularly the accomplishment of that compliance. I think this is tremendously significant. I think it is also. And I was thinking back, Mr. Rao, do you remember not too long ago, 1957, 58, 59, when people said you were crazy for suggesting that the federal government ought to cut off funds that are used in a discriminatory manner and how even President Kennedy, who was far out on this question and who felt so strongly about it, President Kennedy had his hesitancies over this. I remember a conference we had with him in January of 1961. And he said, as every good administrator says, well, he said you put that on paper and let so-and-so see it, one of my advisors. Now it has become the most powerful part of this. And I think probably our leaders, our listeners, might like to know that about ten billion dollars, what we're talking about here is the sum of about ten billion dollars which is allocated by the federal government here in Washington to the various states for various activities. One of the best known ones is school lunch program, but highways come under it and the operation of the state employment agencies, research programs, grants to universities and colleges, and all sorts of funds come under it. And perhaps people away from America don't understand exactly what we're talking about. We say cut off federal funds. Let me just ask this question because so far we've all agreed on the tremendous progress that's been made. Now there have been some terrible things that happened in the last year, the deaths of people who were helping Negroes in the South and some real bad events. Do you have any thoughts of how these bad events tie into the general picture of the progress we have made under the law? Yes, I'd like to lead off with that and point out the fact that it's Selma when the whole nation had much to be ashamed of and when all those horrible things happened there. Nevertheless, they so shocked the conscience of the American people that there was abroad in this land a determination to see that the discrimination that had been practiced by the individual states and communities in voting against the Negro that the last vestiges of that were removed in this country. And out of this indignation and out of this resolve has come the new law which makes reasonable sure that in the future that the states, no state or no county or no community will practice any such discrimination. So as horrible as these examples of violence have been, still they have served to stir the American people to demand a very important action and that action has developed. I think that, I guess it's maybe a sad fact but I think it was almost inevitable that the kind of great social change that is necessary is coming. It's going to bring with it some acts of violence and perhaps amazing it is that there have not been more, especially in a democracy where the people have to take the lead which means that all kinds of opinions find a platform and all kinds of opinion find support. And when this happens then something happens. But I think as Governor Collins has said it's amazing how the great mass of a public opinion has been able to mobilize so quickly around an issue so that this violence does not spread. In each case where violence has erupted immediately there has been a massing of public opinion and public effort which has at least contained it at this point. I think this has been essential to continue progress else there could have been real trouble. I certainly endorse that. I was thinking while you were talking, Mr. Tucker, about how the opinion of some of the Africans has changed, particularly with reference to what the government is doing about it. Now that they have had a chance to study this thing a little closer and to have word from their ambassadors here, we're beginning to get some reactions in our agency. Well, the government of the United States is working at this problem and I think the upheavals, even the unpleasant things that happen and the outbreak of public opinion does demonstrate that the country, the people and the government, certainly the government has taken the lead in this and we're resting with it. We're not sweeping it under the rug. We're not pretending that it doesn't exist. I think this is a great gain. Mr. Routh, there's one phase of this law we certainly must not pass by without referring to and that's the equal opportunity and employment title of this law. Now under this, of course, people are assured the right to be judged on their merits in regard to private employment and this is a very far-reaching provision. Now this law doesn't go into effect actually until right now. On a mandatory basis, but the first year it applies to all businesses that employ a hundred or more people and then that progressively goes down until it applies to all businesses that employ 25 or more. But the important thing I think to note is that employers on their own and voluntarily and anticipating and recognizing the mandate that's implicit in this law have already set in motion the many plans and procedures under which they are actually complying with the law and have been before it became operated and of course a new agency has been created which has just gone into operation which will oversee and supervise the actual implementation of this law and this is of tremendous importance because the Negro in our country has been rather brutally discriminated in respect to many employment opportunities and from now on this nation is committed to the proposition that he shall be judged on his merits and be given the opportunity that all other citizens have and I think this is terribly significant. Mr. Ehrlinger, Tucker, your National Urban League has always been most interested in the employment problem now that we are starting with our Fair Employment Practices National Law, how do you feel about it? Well, obviously this is a bread and butter issue and nothing can be more significant than that. In Washington in a week or two there's going to be held a meeting of area employers who are going to be taking a look at this law, the Urban League is arranging this meeting to determine how can we work together for instance in this community to make this law work. So there is no talk of resistance. It's a question of how can we smooth away this kind of implementation. I think this is going to be extremely important. The country has a lot of good experience. We have some state Fair Employment Laws now under which there's been good experience. We've had the President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunities and under these committees we've learned a great deal. We have a number of employers already in compliance who are doing things who are recruiting in places where they didn't recruit before who are training Negroes in jobs where they didn't train before. So what we're really going to do is take a good national experience that we have and give it greater breadth and greater depth and I think we're going to be in good position to move ahead in this regard. I think one of the other aspects of this law that we haven't touched upon not this one but the new law that went into effect is voting. We've touched on school desegregation, employment, and public accommodation but voting of course in a democracy is most important. We read about 90% or 99% of this country voting and yet we know that in Selma that Governor Collins mentioned Selma the reason we had Selma was because in the state of Alabama one half of the counties had less than 15% of their Negro so voting age registered to vote and in Mississippi this percentage went up to 76 out of 82 counties so that this new voting bill that's just going into effect will remedy these hard core long-established deprivations and I look for great progress on the local level toward correcting some of the problems that now must engage national organizations or the federal government. I look for as soon as we get voting I look for problems with sheriffs and judges and local elected officials to decline because they won't have those kind of sheriffs. We know that Roy Wilkins I recall in your speech in the March on Washington on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963 on August 28th when you said as many congressmen sat in front of you that we want to get this Civil Rights Act passed because we're going to help free some of our Southern congressmen because you knew that their hearts were right and they wanted to vote right but politically it would be suicidal to vote their convictions and I said to someone and speaking in the USIA lecture here recently they asked well what will happen to many Southern congressmen when the Negro gets and uses wisely the right to vote and I said well I expect some of these congressmen become some of the greatest liberals in the United States Senate and House of Representatives because I think that they would like to vote their convictions. Some of them will retire. Yeah and some of them will retire perhaps as it should be but I do think that the voting rights section cannot be overemphasized because herein is really the heart and the guts of a democracy. Right. Well I was trying to say about that there's a few words connected with last time's program a year ago when we were on this program together all of us except Governor Collins who we're so glad to have today we pointed out that the voting rights section of the 64 law was not adequate and what happened was that here we are just a year later while the other provisions of that law has worked and now we are about to start on a new crusade on the voting rights provision and I remind you all that the voting rights bill not only provides a machinery for the federal government to register the Southern Negroes but it outlaws the literacy tests and other devices that have been used against the Negro voting so I think one can say for the voting rights law just now going into effect that it is the real answer on the voting but now gentlemen what is it really going to mean when in Mississippi over 40% of the population of Negroes and vote in Alabama it goes up not quite that high but almost as high now what is it going to mean when all the Negroes vote in the same proportion as whites in these areas where our difficulty has been had? I think you're going to get good men I don't think it's going to mean a Negro takeover in fact no one has had that experience thus far you're going to get some Negro candidates elected who were already good candidate material beforehand and you're going to have as Sterling Tucker suggested you're going to have a continuance of Southern congressmen you're going to have some Southern mayors re-elected because they're good men and they can run the government and the Negro voters know that they're good men and they're all Southerners together they certainly wouldn't be voting against them because they're Southerners How does it look to you, Governor Collins? You had to run in a state where Negroes while some voted some didn't how would it affect the situation in say Florida where you were a governor ahead of his times? Well I think in our state we've seen the last they're making a statewide campaign on a racial issue or appealing to racial prejudice I think the reason for that the big reason for it is not only this law and the influence of this law but specifically the fact that we have a Negro voter registration to a point now that it would be almost suicidal for a candidate to think in terms of just canceling out a vote that strong and that's the reason it's so important that that vote be that strong The present governor who's serving in our state was not regarded especially liberal in this area when he was elected but even so he has made it a point already realizing this basic fact of political life in our state he's made it a point to do certain things that no other governor's ever been willing to do in our state so this is real progress and I don't think in the south we're going to have many elections and in many places in the south we'll never have another election in which there'll be an open issue of antagonism against the Negroes expressed I think as well the note that Governor Collins' state had one of the highest percentages of Negro registration second only to Texas I think important to all of this will be the wisdom that the Negro uses in the exercise of the ballot and I think many organizations such as the one where Wilkins heads the NAACP and the Urban League and other groups for instance the last national election put on a very important campaign across the country to raise the participation of Negro voters everywhere and I think that this participation nationally of the Negro in the past elections will serve the future well in terms of his broader participation in political affairs both north and south and east and west gentlemen it's going to be hard for you to believe this but our time is up it's been such an interesting program that it went terribly fast but now not only our time is up but the year is up the year in which we had to decide whether we could make the 1964 law work and I think it's our feeling that despite the blemishes on the record of the last year despite the difficulties there were difficulties that came out of progress out of things moving forward and that what we told you a year ago about our great new civil rights law of 1964 was not an exaggeration it's even worked I believe a little better and even those of us who were in it could have hoped for and now with the new law in voting rights I think we can say to you that we feel that that law too is going to help move this country towards where we want to be that all men are created equal