A representative from a Midwestern district in which only 2.7 percent of the
population was African American, William McCulloch wasn¹t quite who you¹d
expect to lead the civil rights charge in Washington. But when it came time
to pass the Civil Right Act of 1964, he was the man the President Kennedy
turned to for help.
During the time McCulloch spent practicing law in Florida, he witnessed the
cruelty of segregation firsthand. He believed the Bill of Rights applied to
all Americans, regardless of race, and that the current laws were not only
wrong, but also unconstitutional. These beliefs spurred his involvement in
President Eisenhower¹s civil rights bills in 1957 and 1960.
When President Kennedy went to work on passing the Civil Rights Act in 1963,
he knew it couldn¹t be done without McCulloch. Kennedy sent Assistant
Attorney General Burke Marshall to Piqua, Ohio, to meet with McCulloch and
plan a strategy for getting both parties to support the bill.
As both Democrats and Republicans fought for a civil rights bill they could support, McCulloch stayed in the middle of the work, pushing the bill to law on July 2, 1964.
Copyright 2010 Friends of William M. McCulloch. All Rights Reserved.
Contact Us | P. O. Box. 1453 Piqua, OH. 45356-4453.
