The Civil Rights Act of 1968, also known as the Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968, (Pub.L. 90-284, 82 Stat. 73, enacted April 11, 1968) was a landmark piece of legislation in the United States that provided for equal housing opportunities regardless of race, creed, or national origin. The Act was signed into law during the King assassination riots by President Lyndon B. Johnson, who had previously signed the landmark Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act into law.
Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 is commonly known as the Fair Housing Act and was meant as a follow-up to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. While the Civil Rights Act of 1866 prohibited discrimination in housing, there were no federal enforcement provisions. The 1968 act expanded on previous acts and prohibited discrimination concerning the sale, rental, and financing of housing based on race, religion, national origin, and since 1974, gender; since 1988, the act protects people with disabilities and families with children.
Victims of discrimination may use both the 1968 act and the 1866 act via section 1983 to seek redress. The 1968 act provides for federal solutions while the 1866 act provides for private solutions (i.e., civil suits). A rider attached to the bill makes it a felony to "travel in interstate commerce... with the intent to incite, promote, encourage, participate in and carry on a riot..." This provision has been criticized for "equating organized political protest with organized violence."
Read more about Civil Rights Act Of 1968: Political Context, Types of Banned Discrimination, Subsequent Legislative and Judicial Changes, Lawful Discrimination, Housing Discrimination, Social Steering, Redlining, Segregation Index, Legislation, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, Violations of The Fair Housing Act, Hate Crimes Provisions
Famous quotes containing the words civil rights act, civil rights, civil, rights and/or act:
“...I was confronted with a virile idealism, an awareness of what man must have for manliness, dignity, and inner liberty which, by contrast, made me see how easy living had made my own group into childishly unthinking people. The Negro’s struggles and despairs have been like fertilizer in the fields of his humanity, while we, like protected children with all our basic needs supplied, have given our attention to superficialities.”
—Sarah Patton Boyle, U.S. civil rights activist and author. The Desegregated Heart, part 1, ch. 19 (1962)
“What I fear is being in the presence of evil and doing nothing. I fear that more than death.”
—Otilia De Koster, Panamanian civil rights monitor. As quoted in Newsweek magazine, p. 15 (December 19, 1988)
“To the cry of “follow Mormons and prairie dogs and find good land,” Civil War veterans flocked into Nebraska, joining a vast stampede of unemployed workers, tenant farmers, and European immigrants.”
—For the State of Nebraska, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“The freedom to share one’s insights and judgments verbally or in writing is, just like the freedom to think, a holy and inalienable right of humanity that, as a universal human right, is above all the rights of princes.”
—Carl Friedrich Bahrdt (1740–1792)
“It is not enough to ask, ‘Will my act harm other people?’ Even if the answer is No, my act may still be wrong, because of its effects on other people. I should ask, ‘Will my act be one of a set of acts that will together harm other people?’ The answer may be Yes. And the harm to others may be great. If this is so, I may be acting very wrongly, like the Harmless Torturers.”
—Derek Parfit (b. 1943)