Several decades ago, “controversial” subjects in news media included
many issues that are now well beyond controversy. During the first
half of the 1960s, fierce arguments raged in print and on the
airwaves about questions like: Does a black person (a “Negro,” in the
language of the day) have the right to sit at a lunch counter, or
stay at a hotel, the same way that a white person does? Should the
federal government insist on upholding such rights all over the
country?
Some agonizing disputes, in the media and on the ground, came to a
climax with passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Suddenly, after
many decades of struggles against Jim Crow, federal law explicitly
barred racial discrimination in public accommodations and employment.
After President Lyndon Johnson signed the measure, saying “Let us
close the springs of racial poison,” controversy faded about access
to restaurants and hotels.
But the need for civil rights protests continued, and for a time they
increasingly focused on the right to vote. Banning poll taxes,
literacy tests and other timeworn devices of discrimination that were
