Civil Rights: For the Long Tomorrow

• Share

With Lyndonesque panache, Kentucky's Governor Edward Breathitt last week signed a state civil rights bill beneath a huge bronze statue of Abraham Lincoln in the capitol rotunda at Frankfort, then handed out 40 pens as mementoes of the occasion. He had reason to be proud.

The Kentucky measure, first civil rights law to be adopted by any state south of the Ohio, goes further toward banning discrimination in public accommodations and hiring practices than the 1964 federal law. It opens to Negroes all public facilities except barbershops, beauty shops and private clubs, guarantees fair employment standards to the 90% of the labor force that works for businesses employing eight or more persons. (The federal civil rights act, even when it is fully extended in 1967, will cover only businesses employing 25 or more workers.)

Governor Breathitt, who was almost defeated in 1963 because of his civil rights stand, called the act a "moral commitment kept after 100 years of hope deferred." Said he: "Many will remember what we have done today. Let history record what we shall do in the long tomorrow."