Introduction
In the book by Keith Finley Delaying the Dream explores gradations in the opposition and examines how the United States senators tackled the question of civil rights and developed a resolute plan of action to frustrate legislation by using strategic delay. Finley’s analysis passes beyond traditional descriptions of the pursuit of racial equality. He analyses heroic struggle, the filibusters, and the southern extremism to reveal the other side of the conflict. This paper discusses the evolution of southern resistance to civil rights legislation in the U.S. senate. It expounds on what worked, and what failed to work giving reason for each in reference to Keith Finley’s book Delaying the Dream.
The greatest assessments of the struggles of the American civil rights according to Finley (1) focus on the struggle by the African American community and on the leaders who steered the political coalition that supported the legal and political equality of African Americans. The approach of civil rights movement has occasionally been viewed to be ‘top-down’ when figures like Lyndon Johnson and Martin Luther King Jr. who are considered as the central actors in the civil rights struggle are put in the scène (Finley 1). Even so, there are those historians who focus the civil rights approach to be ‘bottom up,’ these often replicate the theoretical foundation of slave studies and heavily emphasis on the consciousness of the community. Considerably there are those who explore specific facet like specific events or places, gradual judicial and legal development, civil rights organization and presidential policies.
Prior to the Second World War, Finley (355) explicates, Southern senators acknowledge that the fall of segregation was inevitable. They consciously changed their tactics to delay instead of preventing, defeat. They frustrated civil rights advances for decades. With the growth of civil rights support, southern senators altered their argument to limit the use of explicit racism to appeal to Northern senators. To do so, Southern senators granted minor concessions bills that were tangentially related to civil rights and at the same time emasculated the ones with more substantive provisions.
The senators sort support by nationalizing their defense of sectional interests. They linked their defense of segregation with the principle of the constitution to curry favor with the non-southern politicians. These senators primarily achieved success at the federal level but failed to face up to the local racial campaigner in the south. This allowed extremism to flourish. According to Finley, the escalation of white assault on peaceful protests between 1950s and 1960s prompted the northern senators to question the claims of tranquility by the southerners under Jim Crow (Finley 341). By questioning, segregation came under direct attack; the principles that were conversant with the strategic delay were superseded. Finley (308) states that congressional politics over the bill forces the southern senators to go against the administration. The southern senators found themselves in a challenge of balancing a rhetoric that was never before of placating constituents who had become hypersensitive to segregation threats and convincing their Senate colleagues who had gradually turn to be pro-civil rights their opposition was grounded on constitutional bases(Finley 181).
The Civil Rights Act Of 1964 that proscribed employment prejudice on basis of national origin, color, race or sex and also banned segregation in public places is today considered as a fundamental legislative achievement by the civil rights movement (Finley 116). It was first proposed by President Jon F Kennedy and survived tough opposition from southern members of the congress. The Act was later signed into law by Lyndon B. Johnson. Progressively through the years, the congress expanded the act and in addition passed other additional legislations that brought equality to African Americans i.e. the Voting Act of 1965 (Finley 332).
The Civil Rights Act banned segregation on the grounds of national origin, religion or race at all public places including parks, courthouses, and theatres, restaurant, hotels and sports arenas. With the passage of the Act, black were no longer denied service simply based on their race or color. Notably, the Act also banned any form of discrimination, be it racial, gender, national origin or religion by any employer, labor union and created an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which has power to file lawsuits for and on behalf of aggrieved workers. Moreover, this Act restrained the use of federal finances for any dogmatic program, authorized the department of education to help in school desegregation. The Act conferred extra power to the Commission civil rights. It also prohibited unequal application of voting necessities. Martin Luther king Jr. so the civil rights as a second emancipation.
In reference to Finley, the Civil Rights Act was eventually expanded to include disabled Americans, women in collegiate athletics, and the elderly under its umbrella. It has also created way for major subsequent laws i.e. the 1965 Voting Rights Act, that prohibits literacy tests among other discriminatory voting practices, the 1968 Fair housing Act that banned discrimination in sale, financing and ranting of property (Finley 359). Even with continued struggle against racism, legal segregation was brought to its knees.
Work cited
Finley Keith. Delaying the Dream: Southern Senators and the Fight against Civil Rights, 1938-1965. Making the Modern South. LSU Press, 2010
