It’s almost at the edge of living memory: U.S. President Lyndon Johnson signing the Civil Rights Act in July 1964, urging Americans to “close the springs of racial poison.”
The legislation prohibited discrimination on the basis of race, colour, religion, sex or national origin at places serving the public – such as swimming pools and restaurants – as well as in education, hiring, promotion and firing and voting. And it gave the federal government powers to enforce those guarantees.
It was the beginning of the end of Jim Crow, the often brutally enforced web of racist laws and practices born in the South to subjugate Black Americans.
Members of the last generation to live under unabashed Jim Crow are among voters in a historic presidential election that has been roiled by racial and other divisions.
Both candidates have been touched by the legislation in their earlier lives.
Democratic candidate Kamala Harris was bused to school as a young girl in California, as part of efforts across the country to bring children from largely Black areas to schools in largely white neighbourhoods and vice versa.
In 1973, the federal government sued Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s family-owned Trump Management Co. for discriminating against Black tenants under legislation that expanded on the original act.
Asked for comment on the suit, Trump campaign spokesperson Janiyah Thomas said: “This case is over 50 years old and long-resolved.”
To mark the Civil Rights Act milestone, Reuters travelled across Mississippi, Tennessee and Georgia to interview nine Black Americans about their memories of that time – when a Black shopper could be beaten for trying on clothes, or a wrong turn could lead to violence for Black vacation goers – and their views of a historic election.