we learn about the building's construction, its place in history, and the building's namesake, everett dirksen. don ritchie: once upon a time the entire united states senate , could operate out of the capital building. that was in the 19th century. demands on the government grew ew, morehe services gr public letters started coming in, more staff had to be hired, more space had to be acquired, and eventually the three senate buildings were constructed. right now we are in the dirksen , building. we are in the large multipurpose hearing room that has had various layers of history. the first senate office building opened in 1909, known as the

if the senate was going to stop a filibuster on civil rights, they needed everett dirksen's support. any number of major occasions, the civil rights act of 1964, the treaty, once dirksen came on board, once he agreed to whatever the compromise was then the results would come aboard for them to prevail. he was an extremely important leader in his time. it seemed fitting to name this building after him. dirksen liked to say he was a man of principle. one of his greatest principles was to maintain flexibility at all times. that made him a very agile senator and a man who understood you have to compromise in order to build consensus. in the senate, compromise is essential for passing any kind of legislation. getting some kind of bipartisanship is important because really does a majority party have sufficient votes to be able to pass something by itself. always majority leaders have to persuade members of the minority to come on board. always there is some kind of coalition being built. i think that is one of the reasons the u.s. senate wanted to commemorate senator dirksen by naming the

we learn about the building's construction, its place in history, and the building's namesake, everett dirksenn ritchie: once upon a time the entire united states senate , could operate out of the capital building. that was in the 19th century.

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 a

this building was named for a , whoor, everett dirksen had been the republican leader from 1959 to 1969, and who was quite a popular figure. a terrific or rater. a grammy award for a record he did just reading patriotic sheet music and patriotic speeches with music playing in the background. it was quite a popular piece at the time. >> there have been men, brave men who have died so that others might be free. dirksen, just a popular person, who actually also represented a great spirit of bipartisanship. he was a minority leader with a small minority. 35 --rates in the operates with 35 and 36 senators. his votes were critical back in the day when it took two thirds to cut a filibuster. the senate was going to stop a , anyuster on civil rights number of major occasions, the civil rights act of 1964, the treaty, once dirksen came on board, once he agree to whatever thecompromise was then results would come aboard for them to prevail. name -- it wasto fitting to name this building after him. senator dirksen was a man of principle. one of his greatest principles was to maintain flexibility.

everett dirksen. these were great people who were fighting for marshall. >> dirksen was one of the republicans. >> yes, he was. and one of the things during the hearings, they tried to marshall as not sophisticated about the u.s. constitution. >> that wasstrom thurmon. >> right. which is bizarre. >> one of the more sophisticated persons ever to grace the hall of congress. [laughter] >> that was pretty bizarre. was for the fact, sam irirvin -- >> noted constitutionalist. an avuncular hisser during the watergate hearing but not these hearings. >> right. harvard law school. sam irvin collected books. he had 35,000 books. he went into book stores all the time and walked out with loads and loads of books. law books, books about history, books about the arts, books about religion. he had a ton of books. and he was a very smart man. but nowhere in none of those books did sam irvin ever feel he found a line or paragraph that justified equality for the black man. >> well, how about i want to come back to that