The federal government could now withhold funds from state and local programs engaged in racial discrimination, while the Justice Department gained new powers to sue school districts resisting court orders to desegregate. Segregation in public accommodations such as theaters, restaurants, hotels and stores (though not private clubs) was outlawed, as was discrimination by labor unions and private businesses employing more than 50 workers. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, argues Clay Risen in his impressive and compelling “The Bill of the Century,” was the “single most important piece of legislation passed in twentieth-century America.” Reaching “deep into the social fabric of the nation,” it overturned a system of racial domination that had long subordinated African Americans to the rule of Southern whites.
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