June 19, 1964 The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was approved after an 83-day filibuster in the U.S. Senate. Senator Robert Byrd (a Democrat, by the way) was the longest-serving senator and the longest-serving member in the history of the United States Congress. He filibustered against the 1964 Civil Rights Act and supported the Vietnam War, but later backed civil rights measures and criticized the Iraq War. He was briefly a member of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1940s, but later left the group and denounced racial intolerance. What a peach.
Posted on: Wed, 19 Jun 2013 18:59:45 +0000