Full transcript
0:00The summer of 1930 1963
0:04saw JFK
0:07call repeatedly for Congress to move in
0:10introducing civil rights legislation.
0:15Dr. King joined in for these calls. This
0:18is the summer when he gave his famous I
0:21have a dream speech at the reflecting
0:23pool out by the Washington Monument in
0:26Washington DC. However, southern
0:29Democrats and Republicans who
0:34didn't support
0:37JFK and the Dem and didn't want him
0:40getting any kind of win uh to help their
0:43own political causes uh kept such
0:46legislation at bay for being introduced
0:48onto the floor. Uh that fall, of course,
0:52President Kennedy was assassinated in
0:54Dallas while on the campaign trail. And
0:56in hisstead, his vice president, Lynon
0:59Baines Johnson of Texas, took the oval
1:02office and began pushing what became
1:04known as the second reconstruction.
1:08Johnson, the consmate politician,
1:12gave a famous speech to Congress that
1:15was televised in which he quoted civil
1:18rights activists who saying, "We shall
1:21overcome,"
1:23calling the Civil Rights Legislation an
1:25absolute necessity and a way to honor a
1:28president who had fallen fighting for
1:30the legislation.
1:32The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was soon
1:35passed and it offered up a series of
1:38both carrots and sticks. Carrots were
1:41rewards for essentially good behavior
1:43and integrating public spaces in the
1:46South. Sticks were punishments for not
1:49integrating
1:51in in the South. Uh so for instance, the
1:55law was very far-reaching. It outlawed
1:57bias in fally funded programs, which was
2:00very controversial, but it it worked. Uh
2:03it outlawed segregation and public
2:06accommodations.
2:07And now the attorney general had the
2:10ability to intercede on behalf of
2:12citizens who are facing discrimination,
2:15which was a a new thing. So in terms of
2:19sticks, the federal government could
2:20punish people for refusing to integrate
2:24by pulling back money they needed for
2:26better schools in the south. Uh they
2:30could send in the attorney general to
2:32enforce federal law if they didn't
2:35proceed, which was a bit of a stick. Uh
2:39also the uh law created the Equal
2:43Employment Opportunity Commission, the
2:45EEOC, which was a body any citizen could
2:48go to to complain about um
2:52discriminatory behavior that kept them
2:55from admission to a school or getting
2:57hired to a job. On the carrot side of
3:00things, the federal government used the
3:01Department of Education to provide
3:04technological advice to updating
3:07southern schools. They also provided
3:09tons of money to communities to
3:12desegregate and built bigger schools to
3:14accommodate all these students.