The Civil Rights Act changed history, but much work still remains

Editorial by Wilmington Star-News, July 2, 2014.

On this day 50 years ago – July 2, 1964 – President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act into law in a nationally televised ceremony from the White House. Anyone who doesn't remember that time may have difficulty understanding the enormous impact the law had on U.S. society. Its passage paved the way for laws taking aim at racial discrimination and cemented the civil rights movement's place as a force of change in American history.

The landmark law tore down many barriers that faced black Americans and other people of color. It made it harder to discriminate on the basis of race in employment, service, schools and other venues. From the law grew the Voting Rights Act, an attempt to erase barriers to voting by black residents that existed in many places, especially in the South.

Over the years the law has helped shape public attitudes. It is socially unacceptable in most circles to utter racial epithets, to stereotype individuals on the basis of race, sex, religion or sexual orientation. Discrimination on those bases is illegal, if it can be proven. And most companies have come to recognize the benefits of a diverse workforce.

Those who participated in the long struggle for civil rights rejoiced in 2008 as the nation elected its first black president, Barack Obama, by a solid majority. The times, they were a-changing, indeed.

These were all significant strides forward, but this nation is still on a journey toward equality and the day when, as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. so eloquently phrased it, our children "will ... live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

Those who suggest that racism is extinct or that the Civil Rights Act is obsolete have not been living in the same United States as the rest of us. Racism may be less overt today, but its ugly specters still remain.

Black residents who have climbed the ladder to the top reaches of their field sometimes find themselves the target of whisper campaigns suggesting their accomplishments were the result of affirmative action policies. Groups of black men or boys are eyed suspiciously. A black homeowner driving in his own neighborhood may be stopped by police and questioned as to the reason for his presence there.

Schools, including some in the Cape Fear region, are experiencing legal resegregation because housing patterns have not changed. The Supreme Court has declared that busing for racial balance and key parts of the Voting Rights Act have outlived their purpose. Many states have enacted voting restrictions that, despite their sponsors' insistence to the contrary, erect barriers that disproportionately affect minorities and the poor.

We must not, as a people, become so complacent that we allow the clock to turn backward. Yet when we look in the rearview mirror, we also should take pride in how very far we have come.