The Civil Rights Act of 1964: Forty Years Betrayed

In place of equality, freedom and opportunity, the Democrats imposed a caste system.

"If the Senator can find in Title VII...any language...
that an employer will have to hire on the basis of percentage
or quota related to color...I will start eating
the pages...."

by Rod D. Martin
July 2, 2004

So said Hubert Humphrey as the US Senate prepared to pass the 1964 Civil Rights Act, whose 40th anniversary is July 2.

Humphrey was right. Just look at the text.

Section 703(a) within Title VII forbids employers to "limit, segregate, or classify" employees based on their "race, color, religion, sex, or national origin."

And Section 703(j) reads:

"Nothing contained in this title shall be interpreted to require any employer....to grant preferential treatment to any individual or....group...on account of an imbalance."

Clearly, this landmark act, the most sweeping civil rights law since Reconstruction, was meant to be a hammer blow to racial discrimination. Its vision? A merit-based society where, as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, people are judged on the content of their character, not t…