Rauh, Joseph, Jr.(1911–
92): Attorney who lobbied
for civil rights legislation
and represented the
ADA, UAW, Brotherhood
of Sleeping Car Porters,
LCCR, and MFDP.
have talked for 100 years or more. It is time now to write the next chapter –
and to write it in the books of law.’
Using his extraordinary horse-trading skills, Johnson strengthened the
Kennedy measure and enlisted Joseph Rauhof the ADA and Clarence
Mitchell of the NAACP to lobby Capitol Hill. It was all-out political warfare.
In the House, Howard W. Smith of Virginia tried to split off liberal white con-
gressmen from the black civil rights bill by adding an amendment for gender
equality. In the Senate, Richard Russell of Georgia, Johnson’s erstwhile men-
tor, deployed eighteen southern Democrats to talk the bill to death day
after day. Neither southern strategy worked. As the proceedings moved to a
critical stage, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and the National
Council of Churches sent teams of ministers, priests, rabbis, and nuns to
Congress, which nonplussed politicians from the Bible Belt. Brooking no
compromise, Johnson and floor leader Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota
twisted arms for six months to close debate in the Senate and deflect 115
amendments aimed at gutting the measure. The administration promised
federal money to Republican leader Everett Dirksen’s home district in Illinois
to win his support. In explaining his changed position, Dirksen quoted
French playwright Victor Hugo: ‘Stronger than all the armies is an idea
whose time has come.’
To press for the long-delayed bill, Martin Luther King accepted an invita-
tion from Robert Hayling, a dentist active in the NAACP, to organize a cam-
paign in the picturesque town of St Augustine, Florida. America’s oldest city,
which King called ‘a small Birmingham,’ was about to celebrate its 400th
birthday and still excluded blacks from public life. In the spring of 1964,
SCLC’s Andrew Young, Fred Shuttlesworth, and C.T. Vivian led wade-ins at
the beach and night-time marches to the historic slave market. Angry at this
attack on white supremacy, Holstead ‘Hoss’ Manucy, a pig farmer and boot-
legger, led a thousand klansmen to retaliate. They fired on King’s rented cot-
tage and descended on the helpless marchers with bats, garbage cans, park
benches, and a cement birdbath. When blacks desegregated a motel swim-
ming pool, the owner poured acid into the water as the screaming swimmers
dogpaddled to escape. The month-long face-off brought damaging publicity
to the tourist town, which lost 40 per cent of its business. As the situation
spiraled out of control, the governor promised that a biracial committee
would study local problems. This olive branch was enough for King, who
gladly retreated from the stalemated campaign, especially when the civil
rights measure was assured of passage.
On 2 July, Johnson signed the extraordinary bill and handed souvenir
pens to King and other elated black leaders. At this moment of high drama,
the president was deflated, telling an aide, ‘I think we delivered the South to
the Republican Party for your lifetime and mine.’ Under the 1964 law, which94 THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
Civil Rights Act of 1964:
Sweeping legislation
that prohibited discrimi-
nation in public accom-
modations and in hiring
staff, allowed government
agencies to withhold
federal funds from any
program permitting dis-
crimination, authorized
the attorney general to
file suit to desegregate
schools and recreational
facilities, and exempted
anyone with a 6th grade
education from literacy
tests for voting.