On this day in 1875, the House passed a Civil Rights Act by a vote of 162-99. After the Senate concurred, President Ulysses Grant signed the bill into law on March 1.
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During the debate, seven African-American congressmen offered personal accounts of the discrimination they had encountered on trains and in restaurants. “Every day, my life and property are exposed, are left to the mercy of others and will be so long as every hotel-keeper, railroad conductor and steamboat captain can refuse me with impunity,” Rep. James Rapier (R-Ala.) said. “After all, this question resolves itself into this: Either I am a man, or I am not a man.”
As originally drafted, the bill would have outlawed racial discrimination in juries, in schools, on transportation and in public accommodations.
In 1883, the U.S. Supreme Court struck it down on the grounds that constitutional guarantees did not extend to private businesses and that Congress lacked the power to regulate the conduct of individuals. With the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, these issues were revisited and held to pass constitutional muster.
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