Fifty years ago, when President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, I was in elementary school and had no clue about the law that would drastically change daily life for African-Americans. I surely had no idea how it would improve life for white Americans like me.
The historic legislation outlawed discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion or national origin at “places of public accommodation.”
The new law gave the U.S. attorney general authority to seek redress when school boards deprived students “of the equal protection of the laws.”
After signing the Civil Rights Act, President Johnson said to an aide, “We (Democrats) have lost the South for a generation.” The president underestimated the political impact, which continues now two generations later.
In 1966, just two years later, the people of Tennessee for the first time popularly elected a Republican to the U.S. Senate.