Illinois Department of Human Rights to Commemorate 50th Anniversary of Landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964

Lawndale News Chicago's Bilingual Newspaper - Local News

The Illinois Department of Human Rights (IDHR) commemorated the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act with a proclamation from Governor Pat Quinn, and with local dignitaries who worked in the Civil Rights Movement on July 2 at the James R. Thompson Center – 50 years to the date that the historic legislation was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson. IDHR also unveiled the Freedom Riders national traveling exhibit.

Speakers included IDHR Director Rocco J. Claps, local civil rights leaders, DuSable Museum of African-American History President and CEO Carol Adams, and Thomas Armstrong of Naperville, a Freedom Rider who made the courageous journey on interstate buses with other activists through the segregated south in the summer of 1961.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964, enacted on July 2, 1964 outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. It also ended unequal application of voter registration requirements and racial segregation in schools, at the workplace and in public accommodations. The Freedom Riders exhibition looks at six months in 1961 when more than 400 courageous Americans — old and young, black and white, men and women, Northern and Southern — risked their lives to challenge segregated facilities in the South. The exhibition will be on display at the Thompson Center until July 11, 2014.

Comments are closed.