![]() House approval followed, and on July 2 President Johnson signed the bill into law. On June 19, exactly one year after President Kennedy’s proposal, the compromise bill passed the Senate by a vote of 73 to 27. Previously an opponent of civil rights legislation, Senator Dirksen urged Republicans to support the bill as “an idea whose time has come.” On June 10, after a prolonged filibuster, the Senate invoked cloture, thereby cutting off debate. On May 26, Senator Dirksen introduced the bi-partisan Dirksen-Mansfield-Kuchel-Humphrey compromise bill as a substitute for the original version. Republican Senator Dirksen, the Senate minority leader, played a pivotal role in the passage of the act. Throughout the winter and spring of 1964, Johnson applied his formidable legislative acumen and skills to push the bill through Congress. Russell, Jr., (D-GA), the leader of the Southern Democrats in the Senate, who opposed the bill to the very end. He also asked for support from friend and mentor Senator Richard B. He enlisted the help of the NAACP, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, and key members of Congress such as Senators Hubert Humphrey (D-MN) and Everett Dirksen (R-IL), and Representatives Emanuel Celler (D-NY), and William McCulloch (R-OH), to secure the bill’s passage. President Lyndon Johnson made the passage of slain President Kennedy’s civil rights bill his top priority during the first year of his administration. ![]() Courtesy of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library and Museum, Austin, Texas (267.01.00) Johnson (1908–1973) speaks to the nation before signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, July 2, 1964.
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