Civil Rights: Debate in the Senate; A Meeting in Birmingham

During 16 days of drone-and-drawl talk, Southern Democrats had argued that the Senate should not even bring the civil rights bill up for consideration. With those preliminaries well over, the time had arrived for the start of formal debate, and the bill's backers had a chance to present their case. Said Minnesota Democrat Hubert Humphrey, floor manager for the measure: "I will attempt to lay the affirmative case for the bill before the Senate."

Humphrey did just that, and often eloquently, for 31 hours. "This bill is long overdue," he said. "Moderate as it is, it ensures a great departure from the misery and bitterness that is the lot of so many Americans. This misery has found remarkably quiet methods of expression up to the present."

But, Humphrey continued, "within the past few years a new spirit has arisen in those people who have been so long denied. How will we respond to this challenge? The snarling police dogs of Birmingham are one answer. The force of equality and justice is another. That second choice is embodied in the bill that we are starting to consider."

Simple Goals. Section by section, Humphrey went through the bill's eleven titles, explaining each and giving examples of grievances that the bill was designed to redress. In discussing the protection of Negro voting rights, Humphrey noted that in many Southern states, would-be Negro voters are rejected, while even the most illiterate whites are generally allowed to register. He told the story of one white Alabaman who, when confronted with the voter-registration-test question, "Will you give aid and comfort to the enemies of the U.S. or the government of Alabama?", wrote in reply: "If hurt would give comfort only if wonded." The man passed with flying colors. On public accommodations, Humphrey reported that in Charleston, S.C., there were ten hotels and motels that welcomed dogs, none that would take a Negro. As for job opportunities, Humphrey cited a Bureau of Census study that showed that a Negro college graduate during his lifetime would earn less than one-half as much as his white counterpart, some $6,000 less than a white man who quit school after the eighth grade.

"The goals of this bill," concluded Humphrey, "are simple ones: to extend to Negro citizens the same rights and the same opportunities that white Americans take for granted."

Anticipating the Worst. Following Humphrey was California's Senator Thomas Kuchel, the Republican whip, who also offered urgent arguments for the bill. "This issue," said Kuchel, "should not be a partisan fight. It should be, and is, an American fight." But some powerful Republicans do have doubts about certain parts of the bill, a fact attested next day by G.O.P. Leader Everett Dirksen of Illinois. Dirksen said he had received "very substantial encouragement" from the Senate Republican Policy Committee for a dozen changes, most of them technical, in the bill's fair-employment and union-membership provisions. Dirksen also indicated that he had found some support for his idea of an amendment to the public-accommodations section—probably to make compliance voluntary for the first year of the new law's life.