Strom Thurmond filibuster of the Civil Rights Act of 1957

Strom Thurmond filibuster of the Civil Rights Act of 1957

Strom Thurmond, c. 1961
Date	August 28–29, 1957
Duration	24 hours, 18 minutes
Venue	United States Senate
Type	Filibuster
Motive	Prevention of the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957
The full text of the filibuster at Wikisource

On August 28, 1957, Strom Thurmond, then a Democratic United States senator from South Carolina, began a filibuster intended to prevent the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957. The filibuster—an extended speech designed to stall legislation—began at 8:54 p.m.^[a] and lasted until 9:12 p.m. the following day, a duration of 24 hours and 18 minutes. This made the filibuster the longest single-person filibuster in United States Senate history, a record that still stands as of 2024^[update]. The filibuster focused primarily on asserting that the bill in question, which provided for expanded federal protection of African American voting rights, was both unnecessary and unconstitutional, and Thurmond recited from documents including the election laws of each U.S. state, Supreme Court decisions, and George Washington's Farewell Address. Thurmond focused on a particular provision in the bill that dealt with certain court cases, but opposed the entirety of the bill.

Thurmond, an ardent segregationist, had served in the Senate for only three years before the speech, but was politically well-known even before his election to the body. Although the filibuster was supported by many South Carolinians and citizens of other Southern states, Thurmond's decision to filibuster the bill went against a previous agreement among Southern senators. As a result, Thurmond received mixed praise and criticism for his speech. In more recent years, Thurmond's filibuster has been described as racist because of its goal of preventing access to voting for black Americans. Nevertheless, the bill passed two hours after the filibuster and was signed into law by President Dwight D. Eisenhower within two weeks.
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