July 2 Birthday
On July 2, 1964, President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, which prohibited discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin in public accommodations, employment, and federally funded programs. The law was the most significant civil rights legislation since Reconstruction. It had been proposed by Kennedy and blocked by Southern senators in a filibuster that lasted sixty days. Johnson, a Southerner who had opposed civil rights legislation as Senate majority leader, pushed it through after Kennedy's assassination. He used every tool — persuasion, threats, and the memory of the martyred president. "No eulogy could more eloquently honor his memory," Johnson said at the signing. James Garfield was shot on July 2, 1881, at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station in Washington. He was shot by Charles Guiteau, a disappointed office-seeker who believed he deserved a consulship. Garfield was not killed instantly — he survived for seventy-nine days, during which his doctors probed his wound with unwashed fingers, introducing fatal infections. Alexander Graham Bell tried to find the bullet with a metal detector, but the metal bed springs interfered. Garfield died of infection on September 19. Guiteau was hanged. An autopsy showed the bullet had not hit any vital organs — Garfield would have survived with sterile medical practice. Thurgood Marshall, born this day in 1908, argued Brown v. Board of Education before the Supreme Court — the case that ended legal segregation. He argued thirty-two cases before the Court and won twenty-nine. In 1967, he became the first Black Supreme Court Justice. He served for twenty-four years. He was known for his dissents, which were sharp, funny, and often prophetic. People born on July 2 fall under the zodiac sign of Cancer. The birthstone is Ruby and the birth flower is Larkspur. Historical events on July 2 include 1881: President James A. Garfield shot at train station in Washington, 1964: Civil Rights Act of 1964 signed into law by President Johnson, 1962: First Walmart store opens in Rogers, Arkansas. Famous people born on July 2 include Hermann Hesse (1877), Thurgood Marshall (1908), Larry David (1947).