Amended in Assembly June 30, 2014

California Legislature—2013–14 Regular Session

House Resolution No. 48

Introduced by Assembly Member Holden

begin insert

(Coauthors: Assembly Members Achadjian, Alejo, Allen, Ammiano, Atkins, Bigelow, Bloom, Bocanegra, Bonilla, Bonta, Bradford, Brown, Buchanan, Ian Calderon, Campos, Chau, Chávez, Chesbro, Conway, Cooley, Dababneh, Dahle, Daly, Dickinson, Eggman, Fong, Fox, Frazier, Beth Gaines, Garcia, Gatto, Gomez, Gonzalez, Gordon, Gorell, Grove, Hagman, Hall, Harkey, Roger Hernández, Jones, Jones-Sawyer, Levine, Linder, Logue, Lowenthal, Maienschein, Mansoor, Medina, Melendez, Mullin, Muratsuchi, Nazarian, Nestande, Pan, Perea, John A. Pérez, V. Manuel Pérez, Quirk, Quirk-Silva, Rendon, Ridley-Thomas, Rodriguez, Salas, Stone, Ting, Wagner, Waldron, Wieckowski, Wilk, Williams, and Yamada)

end insert

June 19, 2014

House Resolution No. 48—Relative to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

WHEREAS, On August 28, 1963, more than 200,000 people
participated in the March on Washington, D.C., to demonstrate
their support of civil rights for African-American citizens, and the
mass demonstration, as well as the violent attacks on peaceful
demonstrators in Birmingham, Alabama, in the spring of 1963,
galvanized support for national legislation against segregation,
causing a cataclysmic change in the political and social order in
America; and

WHEREAS, On July 2, 1964, President Lyndon Baines Johnson
signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law, legislation proposed
by President John Fitzgerald Kennedy and the most sweeping civil
rights legislation since Reconstruction; and

WHEREAS, Upon the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,
President Johnson addressed the American public on July 2, 1964,
stating that the newly passed act “does not restrict the freedom of
any American, so long as he respects the rights of others. It does
not give special treatment to any citizen. ...It does say that there
are those who are equal before God shall now also be equal in the
polling booths, in the classrooms, in the factories, and in hotels,
restaurants, movie theaters, and other places that provide service
to the public. ...This Civil Rights Act is a challenge to all of us to
go to work in our communities and our States, in our homes and
in our hearts, to eliminate the last vestiges of injustice in our
beloved country”; and

WHEREAS, The Civil Rights Act of 1964 subsequently has
been amended by the Congress of the United States to extend the
protections of the law to disabled Americans, the elderly, and
women in collegiate athletics programs; and

WHEREAS, In 2014, the nation will commemorate the 50th
anniversary of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bans
segregation on the basis of race, color, religion, gender, or national
origin at all places of public accommodation and prohibits
discrimination by employers and labor unions and the use of federal
funds for any discriminatory program; and

WHEREAS, The Civil Rights Act of 1964 ended legal
segregation, and it is fitting and appropriate that the enactment of
this historic legislation be commemorated in the State of California;
now, therefore, be it

Resolved by the Assembly of the State of California, That the
50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 hereby be
commemorated and the citizens of the state be encouraged to
observe this important occasion in the history of the nation; and
be it further

Resolved, That the Chief Clerk of the Assembly transmit copies
of this resolution to the author for appropriate distribution.