The Civil Rights Act became law 50 years ago today. Here’s how The Washington Post covered it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/the-civil-rights-act-became-law-50-years-ago-today-heres-how-the-washington-post-covered-it/2014/07/02/b7c2233b-8141-49c9-a58e-1a1926d55116_story.html?wprss=rss_homepage

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Today is the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Here's a look at how The Washington Post covered its passage.

It had been a bill a long-time in the making, first introduced during the Kennedy presidency and debated on Capitol Hill for months.

The Post ended its July 3 editorial with the sentence, "There is now a fateful choice for Southerners -- a choice between defiance or acceptance of the law of the land."

Many editorials in the South had a different tone.

There were even Civil Rights Act explainers.

It was also very clear that the Civil Rights Act was not going to solve the problems it sought to address immediately -- or even decades after.

Here's a glimpse of the story The Post ran after the Civil Rights Act's 25th anniversary.

Even though the work was far from done, President Lyndon B. Johnson still felt he deserved a short break from politics.