it is all a part of the effort to maintain close, friendly, sympathetic relations with french people were not only interested in our techniques, but in our welfare, as well. many an american holiday, you will see americans march probably down the street of the french town -- pro udly down the street of the frenchtown. and you will see french people, young and old, watching with a sense of respect and pride. >> each week, american history artifacts visits museums and historic places. next, we visit the library of congress on capitol hill to learn about an exhibit marking the 50th anniversary of the civil rights act of 1964.

good morning.n: my name is adrienne cannon. i am the african-american history specialist for the manuscript division of the library of congress and one of the curators for the library 's current exhibit commemorating the 50th anniversary of the civil rights act of 1954 entitled the civil rights act of 1964, a long struggle for freedom. the exhibit takes its subtitle from the speech that president lyndon johnson read before the nation upon the signing of the act on july 2, 1964. there is a copy of the speech borrowed from the johnson presidential library included in the exhibit. the civil rights act of 1964 is considered the most significant use of civil rights legislation since reconstruction. it prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, national origin, in the areas of

voting, employment, public accommodations, public facilities, education. the exhibit has four overall objectives, to present a history of the u.s. civil rights law chronicling a series of federal laws and judicial decisions that paved the way for the civil rights act of 1964. a current history of the 20th century civil rights movement that additionally includes accounts of major figures, organizations, and the movement,aped as well as examples of music, literature, and visual arts inspired by the movement. it tells the story of the epic struggle to pass the civil rights act of 1964 in congress, including a nation of the legislative process and legislative

.trategies and tactics employed and to explore the impact of the civil rights act of 1964 on american life and law from 1964 to the present. we will begin in the prologue section which provides an historical backdrop for race relations in the united states from the colonial period to 1899. we are going to first look at a copy of the united states constitution. the u.s. constitution did not explicitly mention slavery, but there are at least three references to slavery in the document. the first is the 3/5 compromise.

it was inserted by the framers of the constitution, in which slaves were counted as 3/5 of a person for purposes of appropriating seats in the house of representatives, thereby increasing the power of the slave states and congress. the u.s. constitution also contains a fugitive slave clause which was inserted to assure the return of runaway slaves to slaveholders. and in addition, the u.s. constitution prohibited the importation of slaves after 1808. but the language did not refer to africans. the inclusion of these clauses in the nation's founding document is a testament to economic and political influence the institution of slavery had on the founding of this country. documents,elated

this is a contract between thomas jefferson and james madison for the sale of the slave john freeman. fromrson purchased freeman william baker in maryland in 1804 on the condition that freeman would be set free after 11 years of service. in turn solderson freeman to james madison. and after his service with madison, freeman did receive his freedom. freeman served as the servant at the white house during both jefferson and madison's administration. the historian acquired this document from the descendents of john freeman to help support his

research in black history. moving into the segregation era section, this is one of the founding documents for the naacp. the naacp, the catalyst for the founding of the naacp, was a bloody race riot in 1908 that occurred in springfield, illinois, the birthplace and burial site of abraham lincoln. a group of interracial activists assembled to discuss the formation of a group that would advocate for the civil rights of african americans. they organized what they call the national negro conference. they made a call for it on the centenary of abraham lincoln's birth, february 12, 1909. that followed the conference in may on the second anniversary of

the meeting of the conference. they formed a group to organize to form a permanent organization. the group was called the national negro committee. this was a platform for the national negro committee, also known as the committee of 40. the group decided on the name of the organization, the national association for the advancement of colored people. the goals were the abolition of segregation, discrimination, disenfranchisement, and racial violence, particularly lynching. here we have one of the prominent and unique items we had on display in the exhibit, the naacp's lynching flag. this was first flown in 1920 outside the naacp's headquarters on fifth avenue to mark every

time a person was lynched. it was part of the naacp's anti-lynching campaign which also included the publication of the pamphlet "30 years of lynching" in 1919 and the advertisement the naacp took out in 1920 two in both "the new atlantames" and the " journal-constitution," entitled "the shame of america" with a full-page ad in which they listed the number of lynching's to date in 1922. also in the segregation era a.tion, we have included philip randolph, whose primary focus was job opportunities. organized the brotherhood of sleeping car porters. after a 12-your struggle and

legislation, labor he was able to negotiate a bargaining agreement with the holman palace car company -- pullman palace car company. it was the first such agreement between an african american union and a major american company. it launched randolph as a national civil rights leader. the brotherhood also provided black labor with a solid foundation on which to challenge racial discrimination. the members of the union were also instrumental in supporting his various mass demonstrations and movements with both their labor and their money.

in world war ii and post you -- postwar years section, it focuses on the tearing down of racial barriers in a variety of areas that served as building blocks for the full scale assault against segregation in the 1950's and 1960's. we start with randolph's famous marks that didn't happen, the 1941 march on washington. mass as much as 100,000 african americans on washington unless there was an effort made by the roosevelt administration to include the hiring of african americans in the national defense industry.

to halt the march, president franklin roosevelt issued executive order 8802 banning discrimination in defense industries receiving government contracts and setting up the committee to monitor hiring and compliance. we are moving into the civil rights era section. strategy's long legal segregation culminated in the brown versus the board of education decision in 1954. we have here representing the case one of the original briefs for the case. this is for the argument, the hearing that occurred december

9, 1952. featured in this case are items from the rosa parks collection which the library received on loan from the howard buffett foundation in september of 2014. it is on loan from the foundation to the library. we have in the center instructions rosa parks wrote to help alleviate problems andrring between drivers pick up riders organized in the carpool to help support the montgomery bus boycott. rosa parks served on the board of the montgomery improvement association, which was the organization established to -- to directthat

the bus boycott. for about a month, she served as dispatcher. it was her job to take calls pickupders looking for and to coordinate those with the drivers of private cars and station wagons. we also have from the rosa parks fromction this date book the montgomery fair department store where she worked. dated 1955. she repurposed it to keep notes about the bus boycott in 1956. in this date book, we have the list of drivers. we have the list and addresses of naacp members. we have notes about the court cases. we have lists of witnesses that appeared in the court cases.

then we are going to proceed into the civil rights act of 1964 section. this section forms the heart of the exhibit. it is a rotunda-shaped section to imply the rotunda of the capitaol. 1954, to january 1, july 2, 1964. it covers the passage of the bill inights the house, the debate and passage of the bill in the senate, and president johnson signing the bill into law in

july of this section is 1964. organized around a series of letters written between the executive director of the naacp and royon bureau wilkins, the executive director of the naacp. this is a drawing from howard brody who was a renowned world war ii combat illustrator. he worked as a courtroom artist for cbs news. both cameras and sketch pads were barred from the senate chamber when the debate was occurring. to go, howard brody had into the chamber, memorize what he saw, and then go out and sketch it. in this particular sketch, he gives you a cross-section of the

many americans that afforded the -- supported the passage of this in theat came every day gallery. we have members of the clergy. you can see the nuns. we have young and old, black and white. the exhibit takes its subtitle from the speech that president johnson read before the nation on live television on the evening of july 2, 1964. this is the copy that was put into the teleprompter. president johnson: my fellow americans, i'm about to sign into law the civil rights act of 1964. i want to take this occasion to talk to you about what that law

means to every american. 188 years ago this week, small -- a small band of valiant men began a long struggle for freedom. adrienne cannon: he did six drafts of the speech, and then thedded extemporaneously to indicate the long progression towards realizing civil rights. the bill began as a combination -- culmination of the decades of struggle of african americans. but when it was passed, it encompassed all americans. it encompassed everyone regardless of race, color, sex, or national origin. so it is really about the ongoing struggle in this country

to achieve that more perfect union. johnson: we can understand without rancor or hatred how this all happened. but it cannot continue. our constitution, the foundation republic, the principles of our freedom for bid it. visit the mesh for bids it. and the law i will sign tonight for bids it. >> i am a law librarian at the law library of congress. i'm here to introduce you to the personalities of the civil 1964 rights act. representative howard smith was the chair of the house rules committee.

the importance of the house rules committee is before a bill can be debated by the house, the rules committee has to set a revolution resolution governing the terms of debate. the reason for that is the house is so big they cannot just have a free-form debate. he was not in favor of the civil rights act. when a civil rights bill came into his committee, is he would retire home to his farm in virginia. but this time because the 1964 civil rights act was advocated for by president johnson as a tribute to the slain president kennedy, representative smith was under considerable political pressure to do something. he knew he had to report it out of his committee. before he did so, he added something to amend the bill. title vii protects against employment discrimination. as a protected

category two title vii. he thought that would weaken the bill and it would not pass. in actually did pass, so title vii outlaws employment discrimination by businesses on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. it created the equal employment opportunity commission. i also want to point out another key player. once the bill arrives in the senate it is subject to a filibuster led by southern democrats. the leader of the southern democrats is richard russell. richard russell was lyndon johnson's mentor. wall, will look on the you will see that although he was johnson's mentor, by the time johnson was president their had obviously frayed a bit as depicted in the

comic. russell led filibuster against the civil rights act. the democrats knew that they could not break the filibuster without enlisting the support of the republicans. to enlist the support of the republicans, they had to court every dirksen, the senate minority leader, the leader of the republicans in the senate. they need him and his republicans to vote in favor of closure to end the filibuster and ultimately pass the legislation. after adding some amendments to title vii which were fairly minor in scope, everett dirksen threw his support behind the 64 civil rights act. they ultimately passed the act. as they are working on the act, it is important to point out the

context of the social history of the time. a lot of people on the streets were dissatisfied with the slow progress of the bill. outside on the streets, you had more militant groups advocating for stronger measures in support of civil rights, particularly speech atwho gave his king salman baptist church in detroit. this comic depicts hubert humphrey trying to shelter political support for the civil rights bill against the backlash that was coming out from extremist demonstrations on the street that threatened support for the bill. talking about the content of the 64 civil rights act, starting with voting rights in title i , title i bars the unequal requirements for federal election. this is important because following the demise of reconstruction, many states

would implement voting requirements that were unequal that would bar african americans from access to the ballot. this helped put an into that and set the stage for the 65 voting rights at which went further. ii is a huge one. everyone is familiar with the lunch counter protests where students would have sit-ins to advocate for desegregating lunch counters. they would get arrested. another group would come in and get arrested. title ii prohibits discrimination in places of public accommodation including lunch counters, movie theaters, places of entertainment, hotels. ins is significant because the 1875 civil rights act, there was a provision to desegregate public accommodations but it was struck down by the supreme court. ii is sorts, title

of a resumption of reconstruction in that sense. is title iii. it allows the justice department to directly intervene to desegregate facilities that are operated by a state government. it was extremely controversial. it finally appears in the 64 civil rights act. desegregation of public education. here again, this is empowering the federal government to seek the different -- desegregation of a local school. this was very controversial because many of the states were trying to maintain control of the schools and keep them segregated. this empowered the federal government to take action.

title v extends civil rights commission which is able to investigate denials of equal protection in different areas like voting, education, housing, employment, transportation. of course, a lot of programs received federal support. you might ask yourself, why should a program receive federal support that is discriminating in the administration of the program? what title vi does is allow the federal government to cut off aid to federally funded programs that discriminate on the basis of race, color, and national origin. vii whichved to title deals with equal employment opportunity.

sex to protection from employment discrimination. howard smith thought that would weaken the bill and it would not pass. it did pass. title vii outlaws employment discrimination by businesses on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. it created the equal employment opportunity commission. viii empowers the census bureau to collect voting statistics based on race, color, and national origin. title ix permits the united if a caseintervene was removed to a federal court dealing with civil rights, and then remanded back to a state court where perhaps civil rights

might not receive as favorable to thent, that remand state court is now reviewable under title ix. title x deals with the establishment of the community relations service which can based on race,s color, and national origin. a case was referred to the community relations service where a bar put up a sign that barred speaking a foreign language in the bar. the committee worked that out. title ally, we are on xi. this says the accused can get a trial by jury. this was very controversial. this was a compromise critical to passing the act because many

proponents did not want a jury trial for contempt under the 64 civil rights act because they thought maybe certain juries would not be amenable to civil rights and would not convict. the civil rights act is enormously important. it's really the resumption of what ended in reconstruction. a presidentiald contest between tilden and haz yes. rutherford b. hayes became president. he agreed to and reconstruction. states a lot of southern rolling back gains made post-civil war with regard to african american rights. publiclike accommodations are going to be segregated. it is going to be very difficult for african americans to vote in

many places because there is going to be unequal qualifications. they are not going to be and get the same jobs as other americans. the 64 civil rights act is absolutely vital in restarting reconstruction and living up to the promise that all men are created equal. >> [indiscernible] >> [indistinct conversations] >> next on american history tv, a panel discussion on the peoples temple, its leader, jim jones, and jonestown established in guyana.

1978, more than 900 americans died in jonestown in sinai poisoning in what is commonly referred to as the jonestown massacre. the panel includes two former members of the peoples temple and two authors of the book on the peoples temple. the california historical society hosted this discussion. it is about an hour and a half. >> i want to welcome you all to the california historical society. we are deeply honored by our dear partners and friends. the san francisco public library, you cannot ask for