BILL NUMBER: SCR 130INTRODUCED BILL TEXT INTRODUCED BY Senator Mitchell JUNE 23, 2014 Relative to Civil Rights Act of 1964. . LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST SCR 130, as introduced, Mitchell. Civil Rights Act of 1964. This measure would commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and encourage the citizens of California to observe the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as an important occasion in the history of the United States. Fiscal committee: no. WHEREAS, On August 28, 1963, more than 200,000 people participated in the March on Washington, D.C., to demonstrate their support of civil rights for African-American citizens, and the mass demonstration, as well as the violent attacks on peaceful demonstrators in Birmingham, Alabama, in the spring of 1963, galvanized support for national legislation against segregation, causing a cataclysmic change in the political and social order in America; and WHEREAS, On July 2, 1964, President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law, legislation proposed by President John Fitzgerald Kennedy and the most sweeping civil rights legislation since Reconstruction; and WHEREAS, Upon the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, President Johnson addressed the American public on July 2, 1964, stating that the newly passed act "does not restrict the freedom of any American, so long as he respects the rights of others. It does not give special treatment to any citizen. ... It does say that there are those who are equal before God shall now also be equal in the polling booths, in the classrooms, in the factories, and in hotels, restaurants, movie theaters, and other places that provide service to the public. ... This Civil Rights Act is a challenge to all of us to go to work in our communities and our States, in our homes and in our hearts, to eliminate the last vestiges of injustice in our beloved country"; and WHEREAS, The Civil Rights Act of 1964 subsequently has been amended by the Congress of the United States to extend the protections of the law to disabled Americans, the elderly, and women in collegiate athletics programs; and WHEREAS, In 2014, the nation will commemorate the 50th anniversary of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bans segregation on the basis of race, color, religion, gender, or national origin at all places of public accommodation and prohibits discrimination by employers and labor unions and the use of federal funds for any discriminatory program; and WHEREAS, The Civil Rights Act of 1964 ended legal segregation, and it is fitting and appropriate that the enactment of this historic legislation be commemorated in the State of California; now, therefore, be it Resolved by the Senate of the State of California, the Assembly thereof concurring, That the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 hereby be commemorated and the citizens of the state be encouraged to observe this important occasion in the history of the nation; and be it further Resolved, That the Secretary of the Senate transmit copies of this resolution to the author for appropriate distribution.