History of the United States II / Unit 14 USH2 2004 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Title VII
The idea
The Civil Rights Act of nineteen sixty-four outlawed job discrimination by race, color, religion and national origin, and its Title VII added sex to the list. The Yawp credits Black feminists such as Pauli Murray, who warned members of Congress that if sex were not included, the bill would cover only half of those it should.
In practice
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, created under Title VII to enforce the law, as the National Archives records.
Where people slip
The misreading treats women's rights as a separate story that followed the civil rights movement. The protection against sex discrimination sits in the same title of the same Act as the protection against racial discrimination. The Yawp says its full impact came slowly, as women across the nation went to court and pressed employers, and that the labour market stayed explicitly divided into men's and women's jobs until the late sixties and early seventies.
Your place on the trail
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