United States Commission On Civil Rights - History

History

The Commission was created by the Civil Rights Act of 1957, which was signed into law by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in response to a recommendation by an ad hoc President’s Committee on Civil Rights. In calling for a permanent commission, that committee stated:

"In a democratic society, the systematic, critical review of social needs and public policy is a fundamental necessity. This is especially true of a field like civil rights, where the problems are enduring, and range widely ... a temporary, sporadic approach can never finally solve these problems.

"Nowhere in the federal government in there an agency charged with the continuous appraisal of the status of civil rights, and the efficiency of the machinery with which we hope to improve that status.... A permanent Commission could perform an invaluable function by collecting data.... Ultimately, this would make possible a periodic audit of the extent to which our civil rights are secure.... serve as a clearing house and focus of coordination for the many private, state, and local agencies working in the civil rights field, would be invaluable to them and to the federal government.

"A permanent Commission on Civil Rights should point all of its work toward regular reports which would include recommendations for action in ensuing periods. It should lay plans for dealing with broad civil rights problems .... It should also investigate and make recommendations with respect to special civil rights problems."

As then-Senator and Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson put it, the Commission’s task is to "gather facts instead of charges." "t can sift out the truth from the fancies; and it can return with recommendations which will be of assistance to reasonable men."

Since the 1957 Act, the Commission has been re-authorized and re-configured by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Acts of 1983 and 1991 and the Civil Rights Commission Amendments Act of 1994.

Soon after the passage of the 1957 Act, the then-six-member, bipartisan Commission, consisting of John A. Hannah, President of Michigan State University; Robert Storey, Dean of the Southern Methodist University Law School; Father Theodore Hesburgh, President of the University of Notre Dame; John Stewart Battle, former governor of Virginia; Ernest Wilkins, a Department of Labor attorney; and Doyle E. Carlton, former governor of Florida, set about to assemble a record.

Their first project was to assess the administration of voter registration and elections in Montgomery. But they immediately ran into resistance. Circuit Judge George C. Wallace, Jr., who was elected as governor supporting white supremacy, ordered voter registration records to be impounded. "They are not going to get the records," he said. "And if any agent of the Civil Rights Commission comes down to get them, they will be locked up. ... I repeat, I will jail any Civil Rights Commission agent who attempts to get the records." The hearing went forward with no shortage of evidence. Witness after witness testified to inappropriate interference with his or her right to vote. The Commissioners spent the night at Maxwell Air Base, because all the city’s hotels were segregated.

From there, the Commission went on to hold hearings on the implementation of Brown v. Board of Education in Nashville, Tennessee and on housing discrimination in Atlanta, Chicago and New York. The facts gathered in these and other hearings along with the Commission’s recommendations were presented not just to Congress and the President but the American people generally, and they become part of the foundation upon which the Civil Rights Act of 1960, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968 were built.

A revolution in public opinion occurred during the late 1950s and early 1960s on issues of civil rights. The activities and reports of the Commission on Civil Rights contributed to that change. In 1956, the year before the 1957 Act, less than half of white Americans agreed with the statement, "White students and Negro students should go to the same schools." By 1963, the year before the 1964 Act, that figure had jumped to 62%. In 1956, a healthy majority of white Americans–60%–opposed "separate sections for Negroes on streetcars and buses." By 1963, the number had grown to 79% opposed–an overwhelming majority. Even in the South, minds were being changed. In 1956, 27% of Southern whites opposed separate sections on public transportation for blacks and whites. By 1963, the number had become a majority of 52%.

The change in views about the desirability of a federal law was even more dramatic. As late as July 1963, 49% of the total population favored a federal law that would give "all persons, Negro as well as white, the right to be served in public places such as hotels, restaurants, and similar establishments," and 42% were opposed. By September of the same year, a majority of 54% was in favor, and 38% opposed. In February 1964, support had climbed to 61% and opposition had declined to 31%.

In 1972, Juanita Goggins was the first black woman appointed to the Commission. President Ronald Reagan appointed Clarence M. Pendleton, Jr., as the first black chairman of the Commission. A Howard University graduate, he was a conservative who opposed affirmative action and many of the Commission's activities. Pendleton reduced its staff and programs. He served until his death in 1988. Reagan also named Esther Buckley (born 1948), a Hispanic high school teacher from Laredo, Texas as a member of the commission. She was a former and future chairman of the Webb County Republican Party.

The Commissioner Gail Heriot testified about the agency's value on September 5, 2007 on the 50th anniversary of the 1957 Civil Rights Act. She told the Senate Committee on the Judiciary:

"If the value of a federal agency could be calculated on a per dollar basis, it would not surprise me to find the Commission on Civil Rights to be among the best investments Congress ever made. My back-of-the-envelope calculation is that the Commission now accounts for less than 1/2000th of 1% of the federal budget; back in the late 1950s its size would have been roughly similar. And yet its impact has been dramatic."

In more recent years, Congress relied on a Commission report in enacting the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990. In 2008, President George W. Bush announced that he would oppose the proposed Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act shortly after the Commission issued a report recommending against the bill.