The Civil Rights Division Celebrates 60th Anniversary

Saturday is the 60th anniversary of the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division. On September 9, 1957, President Eisenhower signed the Civil Rights Act of 1957, creating the Civil Rights Division. The 1957 Act was the first civil rights law passed since Reconstruction, and was a first step leading to the passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act the following year, and numerous other civil rights laws enacted in the years since that are enforced by the Civil Rights Division.