"Many people don’t remember how violent and dangerous it was in the South at that time. This bill was the culmination of a long list of incidents going on all over America, particularly in the South... Many people, if not most people in the country, were tired of and embarrassed by the violence that accompanied resistance to ending segregation. ... There were two schools of thought in American politics during that time. There were those who were not willing to throw in the towel and agree that we were coming into a new era. The Southern senators—who were then Democrats—were going to resist to the bitter end bringing about any kind of social equality, and they meant it... This [division] wasn’t over because we passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. These were very turbulent times... D.C. itself was still in the process of fully desegregating. It was very clear to a lot of people that this was something that had to change... couldn’t go on any longer. But it also meant that there were a large number of people that weren’t for the change."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Activists from the United StatesSpiritual teachersCivil rights activistsLawyers from the United StatesMembers of the United States House of Representatives
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
The Civil Rights Act at 50: A Conversation with Rep. John Conyers, ACLU Washington Legislative Office, Deborah J. Vagins, (2 July 2014)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Conyers
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
John Conyers
27 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by John Conyers →
Related Quotes
"In January of 1989, I first introduced the bill H.R. 40, Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for African America…"
"Over 4 million Africans and their descendants were enslaved in the United States and its colonies from 1619 to 1865, …"
"I chose the number of the bill, 40, as a symbol of the forty acres and a mule that the United States initially promis…"
"It is a fact that slavery flourished in the United States and constituted an immoral and inhumane deprivation of Afri…"
"Though there is historical cognition for reparations and it is a term that is fairly well known in the international …"
"It’s become clear that this struggle isn’t over. Much of the violence is gone, which provoked and embarrassed so many…"
"We’re calling for an end to this metadata of phone numbers of everybody... without any regard for a criminal investig…"
"We welcome everyone here to the hearing. In the Texas v. Johnson case in 1989, the Supreme Court set forth one of the…"
"Today the Committee will consider the WikiLeaks matter. The case is complicated, obviously. It involves possible ques…"
"My bill does four things:"