Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act into law at the White House, ending legal segregation in public places and banning employment discrimination. The bill, championed by the slain President Kennedy and pushed through a filibuster-plagued Senate, marked the most sweeping civil rights legislation since Reconstruction.
Johnson signed the bill on national television surrounded by civil rights leaders, using more than 75 pens so he could hand out signed mementos to the activists, senators, and clergy who had fought for it — including Martin Luther King Jr., standing just behind him. It capped a legislative struggle that included a 54-day Senate filibuster, the longest in American history at that point, broken only after intense lobbying and the invocation of cloture for just the second time on civil rights legislation.
Johnson reportedly told an aide the night before signing that the Democratic Party would 'lose the South for a generation' because of the law — a prediction that proved strikingly accurate as the political map of the United States reshaped itself over the following decades. Still, he signed it anyway, transforming the legal landscape of American life within hours.
Key people: Lyndon B. Johnson, Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy