The Civil Rights Act of 1964- Education

July 2 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The act had an important impact in Arkansas on many levels. The act permitted the Department of Justice to sue school districts, it gave the Office of Education the ability to draw up stricter school desegregation guidelines, and, importantly, it gave the Office of Education the power to withhold federal funding from schools that did not comply. As a result, school desegregation speeded dramatically in the state. In contrast to the only thirteen out of 226 biracial school districts in the state that had begun to implement school desegregation plans by 1963, only thirty-six districts had not begun to implement desegregation plans by 1966. Of those thirty-six, only twelve school districts still indicated that they had no intention to desegregate. I’m John Kirk, of the UALR History Department, and this has been an Arkansas Moment.