Schakowsky Marks the 50th Anniversary of the Civil Rights Act
Chicago – On July 2, 1964 President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act. Today, 50 years later, Rep. Jan Schakowsky released the following statement commemorating the anniversary:
“The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is one of the most significant laws in our nation’s history. It finally banned discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. On this 50th anniversary we must remember the tremendous debt we all owe to the brave activists of the Civil Rights Movement. Many of them were beaten and bled, others died fighting for equal rights.
Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney were three civil rights workers who were killed. These men were organizing for the Congress for Racial Equality (CORE) on June 21, 1964 when they went missing – just two weeks before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 became the law of the land. In August of that year they were found buried in an earthen dam near Philadelphia, Mississippi. Although they did not get to see the Civil Rights Act become law, their efforts and the efforts of many like them did not go in vain.
Earlier this year I joined Congressman John Lewis, other members of Congress and people from across the country for the annual Civil Rights Pilgrimage. We toured historic civil rights sites in Mississippi and Alabama. I walked with Congressman Lewis and hundreds of others across the Edmund Winston Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. In 1965 Congressman Lewis led a march across that same bridge – pushing for voting rights. He was beaten so badly his skull was fractured and he almost died. The march became known as ‘Bloody Sunday’ because so many peaceful marchers were subject to horrific violence that day. Yet, Congressman Lewis and others have never stopped fighting. It is up to all us to continue this fight and fulfill a vision where all people are treated equally.
We must continue the fight to provide quality education for our children, to establish pay equity for women in the workplace, to achieve for equal rights for LGBT Americans and to ensure that voting rights are protected for all Americans.
This is the best way to truly honor the anniversary of the Civil Rights Act. We must continue to progress and truly become a nation that provides liberty and justice for all.”
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