On July 2, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson, Democrat, signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
President Lyndon B. Johnson, 1964
The act outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion or national origin and gave the federal courts jurisdiction over enforcement, taking it out of the state courts where justice was uneven at best.
The Civil Rights Act had political ramifications as well. Its adoption caused a mass exodus of angry racists from the Democratic Party in the old south to the Republican Party. And the politics borne of hatred of The Other gave the not so Grand Old Party the presidency for 28 out of the next 40 years.