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49 St. Louis U. L.J. 1029 (2004-2005)
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Coalition Politics

handle is hein.journals/stlulj49 and id is 1049 raw text is: THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT OF 1964 AND COALITION POLITICS SHERYLL D. CASHIN* Professor Days began his Childress Lecture by recounting his personal experience with Jim Crow segregation. I too have such a story. I was born and raised in Hunstville, Alabama, a city that is notable, among other things, for having desegregated its public accommodations in 1962, two full years before the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The turning point in the non-violent sit-in movement in Hunstville was when a young, African- American woman was arrested with a four-month-old baby in her arms, along with a friend who was eight months pregnant. This caused some outrage and widespread press coverage. The mother was Joan Carpenter Cashin and the baby was me. I am proud to have played a role, however small, in the most important social movement of the twentieth century in the United States. In the past year we have celebrated a number of civil rights milestones. The fiftieth anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education.1 The fortieth anniversaries of the March on Washington and of the Civil Rights Act of 2 1964. Collectively our nation now venerates our most progressive, socially transforming legal edicts, even as we accept, or ignore, persistent racial inequality. Much has been written about the limits and modern meaning of Brown.3 Elsewhere I have argued that we have failed to live up to the * Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center. I would like to thank my Research Assistant Zhubin Parang for his invaluable assistance. 1. 347 U.S. 483 (1954). 2. Pub. L. No. 88-352, 78 Stat. 241 (1964). 3. See, e.g., DERRICK BELL, SILENT COVENANTS: BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION AND THE UNFULFILLED HOPES FOR RACIAL REFORM 6-7 (2004) (discussing Professor Seidman's claim that the Supreme Court's declaration that separate facilities were inherently unequal legitimated current unequal arrangements by suggesting that those who remain poor and disempowered had simply failed to take advantage of their definitially equal status); MICHAEL J. KLARMAN, FROM JIM CROW TO CIVIL RIGHTS: THE SUPREME COURT AND THE STRUGGLE FOR RACIAL EQUALITY 344-442 (2004); CHARLES J. OGLETREE, JR., ALL DELIBERATE SPEED: REFLECTIONS ON THE FIRST HALF CENTURY OF BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION xv (2004) (arguing that the unfulfilled legacy of Brown reflects our nation's limited commitment to racial justice); Gary Orfield & Chungmei Lee, Brown at 50: King's Dream or Plessy's Nightmare? THE CIVIL RIGHTS PROJECT, HARV. U. 2, 40 (2004) (arguing, inter alia, that school segregation has been increasing since the 1990s and that a renewed commitment to integration is needed, which would involve appointing Brown-friendly judges and civil rights enforcement officials, reviving federal aid programs that confront race relations issues, and providing financial incentives to