Social Justice
"I have said before that the words, "American Citizen," will become only a worthless term, if any one of us is denied the rights which belong to all citizens. We cannot stand aside and watch while one man's rights are denied, for what he loses today, we all may lose tomorrow." Harrison A. Williams, Jr., Remarks on joining as a cosponsor of the Civil Rights Act of 1967.
The opening of American society to include more of its citizens as full participants in its democracy and to respect all individuals’ unalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is perhaps the signature legacy of the 1960s and 1970s. On the legislative front, the battle for civil rights for African-Americans culminated with landmark acts in 1964 and 1965. Other forms of legal discrimination—including, but surely not limited to, those of age, sex, and disability—were exposed, confronted, and became the subject of legislative action by Williams and others.
Schedule of floor managers for H.R. 7152, 18 May-16 June 1964.
A package of two civil rights bills, S. 1731 and S. 1732, were introduced in the Senate in 1963. As negotiations advanced over the next year, the House version, H.R. 7152, became the vehicle for advancing the legislation, leading to passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Photograph, Harrison Williams receives a petition from the Princeton, NJ, area in support of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
In the months leading to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Williams received messages from his New Jersey constituents, either supporting or opposing the bill. Over 1,000 people, most of whom were from Princeton, NJ, signed this petition favoring the civil rights bill.
CRAC [Civil Rights Action Committee] Bulletin #1, "Statement of Policy," 12 April 1964.
Racial discrimination was a nationwide commonplace, including within Harrison Williams's home state of New Jersey. At Drew University in Madison, NJ, civil rights activists identified and acted on such discrimination, such as in this case of a local barbershop. The bulletin was mailed to Harrison Williams by a member of CRAC's Committee on Petitions, who in his transmittal noted the organization's membership totaled over 150 students, professors and residents.
News from the office of: Senator Harrison A. Williams Jr., [No.] 72-102: "Remarks of Senator Harrison A. Williams, Jr. at rally of 'Disabled in Action,' the Capitol, Washington, Friday, May 5, 1972, 11:30 a.m."
Disabled in Action was founded in New York in 1970 to advocate for the rights of the disabled. In his remarks to the group, Williams noted that, "no law makes it a crime to discriminate against a person because of a physical or mental disability. Perhaps we need that kind of law, because that kind of discrimination is very real." His references that day to the disabled's lack of access to public transportation and public education both reflected his work on behalf of the disabled in the 1960s and anticipated corrective legislation he advanced in the 1970s.
First page of S.J. Res. 7, Joint resolution proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States extending the right to vote to citizens eighteen years of age or older, 25 January 1971.
Support for lowering the voting age nationally from twenty-one to eighteen had existed to some extent for many years. But its urgency increased with the student activism of the 1960s, especially in the face of the glaring injustice of eighteen-year olds having no vote despite being subject to the military draft and possible death on the battlefields of Vietnam. Attempts to lower the voting age through federal legislation in 1970 were overturned in part by the Supreme Court, leading to a patchwork of age-eligibility laws. Accordingly, a constitutional amendment was proposed, and the states promptly ratified it within seven months.
First page of S. 867, A bill to amend the Consumer Credit Protection Act to prohibit discrimination by creditors on the basis of sex or marital status in connection with any extension of credit, 15 February 1973.
In introducing his Equal Credit Opportunity Act, Williams's remarked that "[women] are specifically subjected to a wide variety of practices used in extending credit which directly discriminate against them on the basis of sex and marital status. Most of those practices are based on outmoded assumptions about the status and role of women in society."
Photograph, press conference introducing Senate bill S. 995 prohibiting sex discrimination on the basis of pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical conditions, 15 March 1977.
Denied disability benefits for pregnancy care under their employer's health plan, Martha Gilbert and others took their case to court, arguing that denying such benefits was a form of sex discrimination. Eventually, the Supreme Court ruled against the women. Williams took up the cause in his committee, leading to a 1978 law that expanded the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to prohibit employment discrimination on the basis of pregnancy or childbirth.