Civil Rights Era (1960's)

Three major civil rights statutes were enacted during the legislative phase of the Civil Rights Era, 1964 through 1968. In 1963, decades of organizing and struggle by African Americans culminated in the historic March on Washington. At the march, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. stood before the Lincoln Memorial and defined the Civil Rights Movement's vision of a just and inclusive society to the refrain "I Have A Dream."

Late in 1963, following the assassination of John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Lyndon Johnson assumed the Presidency. Capitalizing on the momentum generated by the march and other effective Movement strategies, and applying his own unparalleled understanding of the workings of Capitol Hill, Johnson pressed the civil rights agenda forward. The enactment of the first of the major civil rights statutes, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, was a watershed moment in American history. Among its other ramifications, it established the statutory foundation on which Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and later the ADA were constructed.
 
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was broad in its scope, encompassing recipients of federal funds, employers, and places of public accommodation such as the bus stations, restrooms, and lunch counters which had figured so prominently in "sit-ins" and "freedom rides." The Act was also broad in its definition of protected classes. It prohibited discrimination on the basis of race, religion, and national origin. However, the Civil Rights Act did not cover people with disabilities. Disability would not be linked to the mainstream of civil rights law which flowed from the Civil Rights Act of 1964 until Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 was enacted almost a decade later.
 
In 1965, the second major anti-discrimination statute of the civil rights era, the Voting Rights Act, was enacted, and three years later, the last of the major civil rights acts of the era, the Fair Housing Act was passed.
 
Following Dr. King's assassination in Memphis in 1968, the last of the major civil rights statutes of the 1960s was passed. The Civil Rights Act of 1968 moved through Congress with extraordinary speed, spurred by an outpouring of anger by African Americans and other concerned people across the United States. Title VIII of the Act prohibited discrimination on the basis of race, religion, national origin and sex in the sale and rental of housing, but the Fair Housing Act, like the Civil Rights Act of 1964, did not include people with disabilities among its protected classes. In 1988, however, the Fair Housing Act was amended to add two new protected classes: people with disabilities and families with children.
 
In the same year as the Fair Housing Act, a significant piece of disability legislation was enacted, one which demonstrated, however, that the redefinition of disability policy in terms of civil rights was not yet underway. The Architectural Barriers Act of 1968 (ABA) requires that buildings constructed or altered by or on behalf of the United States, leased by the Federal Government, or financed by federal grants or loans -- if the authorizing statute permits design standards -- be designed and constructed to be accessible to persons with disabilities. The ABA, while not initially effective, nevertheless established the foundation for later efforts to provide accessibility in federally funded facilities.
 
The ABA was not civil rights legislation. It had no teeth and was poorly enforced until later action by the Congress linked access policy to civil rights and created an enforcement and technical assistance agency, the federal Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board. The Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board, known as the federal Access Board, was established in 1973 under Section 502 of the Rehabilitation Act, part of the same Title V as Section 504. The Access Board is composed of the heads of 12 federal agencies (or their high-ranking designees) and 13 public members appointed by the President (at least a majority of whom must be persons with disabilities). Physical and communication accessibility is crucial to the integration of people with disabilities. As recognition of this grew within the federal government, the Access Board was strengthened through a series of congressional actions. Eventually it assumed its current status as a key federal agency, establishing design and scoping standards for facilities covered by the Architectural Barriers Act, by Section 504, and by the Americans with Disabilities Act.
 
In political terms, the influence of the civil rights era lies in the fact that many individuals with disabilities who later became active in the Disability Rights Movement were inspired by the struggle of African Americans for civil rights and by the Women's Movement. Both movements demonstrated the possibilities for creative political and personal responses to discrimination and social devaluation, and emphasized the need for personal empowerment and community organizing among people with disabilities who had traditionally been isolated, not only from the mainstream of society, but from one another.