Source M We have won a great victory with the Civil Rights Act. The law now says that no American can be denied service in a hotel, a restaurant, or a theat...

This is a 15-mark question requiring a sustained, well-balanced argument about whether the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ended racial inequality in the United States.

What does the source show?

The source is a speech by a civil rights leader at a rally in Washington, D.C. in January 1965 - just months after the Civil Rights Act was signed (July 2, 1964). The speaker acknowledges the Act as "a great victory" but argues the struggle is far from over:

• The Act prohibited discrimination in public accommodations (hotels, restaurants, theaters).
• However, in Mississippi, fewer than 7% of eligible Black citizens were registered to vote.
• In Alabama, county registrars used "impossible literacy tests" to turn away Black applicants while allowing barely literate white citizens to register.
• The speaker concludes that without the right to vote, "we have not achieved true equality."

Arguments that the Civil Rights Act achieved important progress:

• The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was landmark legislation that prohibited discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin in: (a) public accommodations, (b) employment, and (c) federally funded programs.
• It created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to enforce workplace anti-discrimination rules.
• It gave the federal government the power to withhold funding from schools that refused to desegregate, providing a practical enforcement mechanism for the Brown v. Board of Education ruling.
• It represented a decisive federal commitment to ending the legal framework of Jim Crow segregation in the South.

Arguments that the Act did not end racial inequality:

• Voting rights remained unprotected. The source accurately highlights this critical gap. The statistics it cites are historically verified - in Mississippi, only about 6.7% of eligible Black citizens were registered to vote. Literacy tests, poll taxes, and intimidation effectively disenfranchised Black voters across the South. This led directly to the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which banned literacy tests and authorized federal registrars to oversee voter registration.
• Housing segregation continued. The Civil Rights Act did not address housing discrimination. Practices like redlining (banks refusing mortgages in Black neighborhoods) and restrictive covenants (agreements among white homeowners not to sell to Black buyers) maintained residential segregation. The Fair Housing Act was not passed until 1968.
• Economic inequality persisted. Median Black family income remained far below white family income. Centuries of slavery, Jim Crow, and discrimination in education and employment had created a wealth gap that legal equality alone could not close.
• De facto segregation in Northern cities was largely untouched by the Act, which primarily targeted de jure (legal) segregation in the South. Black communities in Northern cities faced poverty, substandard housing, police brutality, and limited economic opportunity.
• Continued violence and resistance. The assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. (April 1968), urban riots in Watts (1965), Detroit and Newark (1967), and the rise of the Black Power movement all demonstrated that legal equality had not translated into social or economic equality.
• The Supreme Court and subsequent administrations sometimes weakened enforcement, and racial inequality in education, criminal justice, housing, and wealth persists to the present day.

Reaching a balanced conclusion:

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a necessary but insufficient step toward ending racial inequality. It dismantled the legal framework of segregation and established important federal enforcement mechanisms. However, legal equality did not produce practical equality in voting, housing, education, economic opportunity, or criminal justice. The source, written just six months after the Act's passage, already identifies the voting rights gap that would require another major law. The Act ended legal discrimination in specific areas but could not, by itself, reverse centuries of structural inequality. Subsequent legislation (the Voting Rights Act, the Fair Housing Act), court decisions, and ongoing social movements were all necessary - and the process of addressing racial inequality continues.

Exam technique: For 15-mark questions, the examiners expect sustained analysis, not a list. Each argument should be developed with specific evidence. The source should be integrated throughout, not just mentioned at the beginning. The strongest answers engage with the precise wording of the claim - "ended racial inequality" is a very strong statement, and your answer should test whether the evidence supports such a definitive claim. Show awareness that legal change and social change are not the same thing.