The The Papers of Clarence Mitchell Jr., Volume VI: The Struggle to Pass the 1960 Civil Rights Act, 1959–1960

null Review " The Papers of Clarence Mitchell, Jr. is a primary source and analytical goldmine for scholars of civil rights and labor struggles in the twentieth-century United States.... Well organized, engagingly written, and edited with cogent commentary, these two volumes (III & IV) take us inside Mitchell's activist office and let us hear his own words."-- Journal of Southern History "Clarence Mitchell, Jr., for decades waged in the halls of Congress a stubborn, resourceful and historic campaign for social justice. The integrity of this '101st senator' earned him the respect of friends and adversaries alike. His brilliant advocacy helped translate into law the protests and aspirations of millions consigned for too long to second-class citizenship. The hard-won fruits of his labors have made America a better and stronger nation."--President Jimmy Carter, from the citation for the Presidential Medal of Freedom About the Author The Civil Rights Act of 1960 aimed to close loopholes in its 1957 predecessor that had allowed continued voter disenfranchisement for African Americans and for Mexicans in Texas. In early 1959, the newly seated eighty-sixth Congress had four major civil rights bills under consideration, and their eventual consolidation into the 1960 Civil Rights Act was to have corrected the weaknesses in the 1957 law. From 1959 to 1960, Mitchells papers show the extent to which the resistance in Congress to the passage of meaningful civil rights laws contributed to the lunch counter sit-ins in Greensboro, North Carolina, and subsequent demonstrations. They show the repercussions on the NAACPs work in Washington and how, despite their dislike of demonstrations, NAACP officials made use of them to them to intensify the civil rights struggle. Among the acts seven titles were provisions enabling federal inspection of local voter registration rolls and penalties for anyone attempting to interfere with voters according to race or color. The powers of the US Commission on Civil Rights were extended under the law, and the legal definition of the verb to vote was broadened to specify all elements of the process: registration, casting a ballot, and the proper counting of that ballot. Ultimately, Mitchell considered the 1960 act to have been unsuccessful because Congress failed to include the amendments that would have strengthened the 1957 act. In the House, representatives used parliamentary tactics to stall employment protections, school desegregation, poll-tax elimination, and other meaningful civil rights protections. The fight would continue. The Papers of Clarence Mitchell Jr. series is a detailed, multi-volume record of the NAACP leaders success in bringing the legislative branch together with the judicial and executive branches to provide civil rights protections during the twentieth century.