The Last Hurrah

Abstract

This chapter examines the role of mainline Protestant religious leaders in building support for the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Using both archival evidence and public opinion data, it argues that church-based educational campaigns played an important role in the law’s passage. Although the general arc of the story will be familiar from prior histories of the Civil Rights Act, the focus here is on religious authority and its role in shaping the views and actions of average believers. With that in mind, the chapter concludes with a section in which data from the 1964 American National Election Study (ANES) is used to test whether church involvement affected white Protestants’ views concerning the Civil Rights Act. The public opinion data confirm the picture that emerges from the archival record—namely, that the churches’ educational efforts were, in fact, a critical factor in building northern white support for a meaningful civil rights bill.