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The Civil Rights Act of 1957 |
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On March 9, 1956, Attorney General Herbert Brownell circulated to Eisenhower and his cabinet a four part civil rights bill to be presented to Congress. Part I provided for creation of a bipartisan United States Commission on Civil Rights for the purpose of studying racial discrimination in the United States and recommending remedial legislation to Congress. It was hoped the Civil Rights Commission's investigations and written reports would provide factual data and reasoned arguments for civil rights supporters in subsequent legislative fights.
Part II provided for transforming the small Civil Rights Section of the Justice Department into a Civil Rights Division headed by an assistant attorney general. The proposed Civil Rights Division would enjoy the enhanced status of being created by congressional legislation rather than executive order. It also would have more lawyers and more money with which to pursue civil rights objectives.
Part III of Herbert Brownell's proposed civil rights bill provided that the attorney general of the United States be granted the power to secure court injunctions in civil rights cases and that such cases be removed from state courts to United States courts. Civil rights supporters had long argued that only intervention by the United States Government would end civil rights violations against blacks in the South.
"This provision soon became known on Capitol Hill as 'Part III' because it was the third title of the proposed Eisenhower administration civil rights bill. Part III was an extremely important proposal to civil rights supporters. It would permit the U.S. attorney general to file civil rights suits, thus relieving the black individual in a hostile southern community of the responsibility of filing such a suit. Many black individuals would not think of filing a civil rights suit, mainly because the threat of white retaliation, possibly in the form of a bombing or a lynching, was so great. The attorney general and the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department would have no such fears, however, and could pursue civil rights cases in a vigorous and public way that would never occur if such cases were left to the individual initiative of isolated southern black citizens."
The Eisenhower Part III was not adopted until 1964, but almost all civil rights bills brought to Congress in the 1957-1964 period contained a provision similar to Part III. This provision invested the attorney general with the power to seek court injunctions to protect the civil rights of African-Americans throughout the South. The concept retained the identifying label "Part III" even when it was not the third part of the particular bill in question.
Part IV would increase the power of the Justice Department to seek injunctions against actual or threatened interference with the right to vote. It also extended U.S. election laws to cover primary elections and special elections as well as general elections.
At first President Eisenhower endorsed only the first two points of Brownell's proposed legislation. By October of 1956, however, late in his successful campaign for reelection, Eisenhower declared his support for all four provisions. In his 1957 State of the Union message he urged Congress to enact all four points into law.
President Dwight Eisenhower signing the 1957 Civil Rights Act
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