 | |
| Date | August 28–29, 1957 |
|---|---|
| Duration | 24 hours, 18 minutes |
| Venue | United States Senate |
| Type | Filibuster |
| Motive | Prevention of the passage of theCivil Rights Act of 1957 |
 The full text ofthe filibuster at Wikisource | |
On August 28, 1957,Strom Thurmond, aDemocraticUnited States senator fromSouth Carolina, began afilibuster intended to prevent the passage of theCivil Rights Act of 1957. The filibuster—an extended speech designed to stall legislation—began at 8:54 p.m.[a] and lasted until 9:12 p.m. the following day, a duration of 24 hours and 18 minutes. This makes the filibuster the longest single-person filibuster in United States Senate history as of 2025[update]. It was also the longest single-person Senate speech until 2025, when the recordwas broken byCory Booker of New Jersey, with Booker speaking for 25 hours and 5 minutes.
Thurmond's filibuster focused primarily on asserting that the bill in question, which provided for expanded federal protection ofAfrican American voting rights, was both unnecessary andunconstitutional, and Thurmond recited from documents including the election laws of each U.S. state,Supreme Court decisions, andGeorge Washington's Farewell Address. Thurmond focused on a particular provision in the bill that dealt with certain court cases, but opposed the entirety of the bill. The bill passed two hours after the filibuster and was signed into law by PresidentDwight D. Eisenhower within two weeks.
Thurmond, an ardentsegregationist, had served in the Senate for only three years before the speech, but was politically well-known even before his election to the body. Although the filibuster was supported by many South Carolinians and citizens of otherSouthern states, Thurmond's decision to filibuster the bill went against a previous agreement among Southern senators. As a result, Thurmond received mixed praise and criticism for his speech. Thurmond's filibuster was intended to delay access to voting for Black Americans.
TheFifteenth Amendment had guaranteed citizens of all races the right to vote in 1870, but state laws,poll taxes, and other institutions stillprevented many Black Americans from voting.[1] TheCivil Rights Act of 1957 was designed to federally secure and protect the right of Black Americans to vote, and was supported by theNAACP alongside theDwight D. Eisenhower administration.[2][3] The Act aimed to protect this right by establishing aCivil Rights Division within theDepartment of Justice and aU.S. Civil Rights Commission.[4] In the Senate, manyDemocrats from Southern states were angered by the bill.[5] The original bill had passed in theHouse of Representatives in June, but when the bill was sent to the Senate it was significantly watered down by a compromise to satisfy theDemocrats.[3] The Senate compromise removed a provision that would have allowed theAttorney General to file suit for discrimination in public places and added an amendment that guaranteed atrial by jury for anyone charged with restricting an individual's right to vote.[6] This modified version of the bill passed the House on August 27 by a vote of 279–97.[3]
Strom Thurmond, aUnited States senator fromSouth Carolina, remarked that the civil rights bill constituted a "cruel and unusual punishment",[7] and stated that he hoped to "educate the country" by means of an extended speech against the legislation.[8] Senate rules allow for virtually unlimited debate on a bill, and afilibuster is a means of using these rules to prevent a bill's passage by speaking for as long as possible.[9] At the time of Thurmond's filibuster, leaving the chamber or sitting down while speaking would end a senator's speech.[10] A filibuster can also be ended by acloture vote, which requires a certain percentage of senators to agree that a speech should be ended. At the time of Thurmond's speech, the threshold for cloture was a two-thirds majority. Thurmond holds the record for the longestsolo filibuster, but longer filibusters have been carried out by groups of senators.[9] He held the record for the longestsolo speech until 2025, afterCory Booker gavea speech protesting thesecond presidency of Donald Trump lasting twenty-five hours and four minutes.[11][12][13]
Thurmond's filibuster was primarily focused on a specific provision in the civil rights bill that focused on minor voting rightscontempt cases. The provision allowed these cases to be triedby a judge without a jury present, but allowed a second trial by jury if penalties in the first trial exceeded 45 days' imprisonment or $300 in fines. This arrangement had been decided through a compromise betweenRepublicans and Democrats, though according to historianJoseph Crespino it had very little practical impact since many judges would not hear a case without a jury if doing so made a second trial more likely.[14] Thurmond and other Southern senators saw the provision as a violation of the defendant's right to a trial by jury, which is guaranteed by theU.S. Constitution.[15]
Thurmond had been significantly involved in politics before his senatorship: he had served asGovernor of South Carolina, helped to found theStates' Rights Democratic Party after awalkout over civil rights at the1948 Democratic National Convention, and ran againstHarry S. Truman andThomas E. Dewey as the new party's candidate in the1948 presidential election. Thurmond garnered more than one million votes and won four states in thisthird-party presidential bid as aDixiecrat. Six years later, Thurmond ran as a Democrat andwas elected to the Senate as thejunior senator from South Carolina in awrite-in campaign.[16][17] Thurmond's political candidacies were largely based on his opposition toracial integration.[18]
Thurmond had earlier argued that the Southern senators should personally meet with Eisenhower to threaten him with an organized filibuster that would hold up other legislation, atactic used successfully in the past to defeatother bills. But other senators thought that this could be counterproductive and that the tactic should be held in reserve.[19]
An agreement within theSouthern Caucus to not stage an organized filibuster had been reached in SenatorRichard Russell's office on August 24, four days before Thurmond's speech.[20] Thurmond's departure from the senators' agreement was later criticized by party leaders including Russell andHerman Talmadge.[21]
The filibuster began at 8:54 p.m. on August 28, 1957, with a reading of theelection laws of each of the 48 states,[b][23] and continued with readings fromU.S. Supreme Court rulings,Democracy in America byAlexis de Tocqueville, andGeorge Washington's Farewell Address.[22][24] TheSenate chamber gallery, filled with hundreds of spectators at the beginning of the filibuster, dwindled to just NAACP lobbyistClarence Mitchell Jr. and Thurmond's wife Jean at points during the early morning hours.[23][25] On the morning of the 29th, Thurmond's voice dropped to a mumble and his tone became increasingly monotonous. Republican leaderWilliam Knowland fromCalifornia requested around midday that Thurmond speak up so he could be sure no motions were being made, but Thurmond responded by suggesting that the senator move closer. Knowland remained where he was.[26][27] At approximately 1 p.m., Thurmond yielded to allow for theswearing-in ofWilliam Proxmire, who had been elected following the death ofJoseph McCarthy, after which he resumed his speech. Thurmond was also allowed breaks throughout the day by other senators, including some in support of the bill, when they questioned him at length.[28]
Thurmond concluded his filibuster after 24 hours and 18 minutes at 9:12 p.m. on August 29, making it the longest single-person filibuster ever conducted in the Senate as of 2025[update].[9][29] This surpassed theprevious record set byWayne Morse, who spoke against theSubmerged Lands Act for 22 hours and 26 minutes in 1953.[30][31][32] It was also the longest speech conducted in the Senate until 2025, whenCory Booker gavea speech protesting thesecond presidency of Donald Trump.[12] Teams of Congressionalstenographers worked together to record the speech for theCongressional Record, which ultimately consumed 96 pages in theRecord and cost over $7,000 in printing costs ($78,000 in 2024 dollars).[26][33]
Thurmond's filibuster has been described by historian and biographer Joseph Crespino as "kind of aurological mystery".[24] Thurmond took regularsteam baths leading up to the filibuster to draw fluids out of his body, thusdehydrating himself and allowing himself to absorb fluids for a longer period of time during the filibuster.[7][34] It has also been rumored within the African American community that Thurmond used other methods to avoid leaving for the restroom.[35]The Chicago Defender stated that Thurmond had worn "a contraption devised for long motoring trips" that allowed him to relieve himself on the stand, and longtimeCapitol Hill staffer Bertie Bowman claimed in his memoir that Thurmond had been fitted with acatheter.[24][35] Thurmond was allowed to leave for the restroom one time, approximately three hours into the filibuster. SenatorBarry Goldwater quietly asked Thurmond how much longer he could hold off using the restroom, to which he replied, "about another hour". Goldwater asked Thurmond to yield the floor to him for a few minutes, and Thurmond was able to use the restroom while Goldwater made an insertion to theCongressional Record.[36] An aide had prepared a bucket in the Senatecloakroom for Thurmond to relieve himself if the need arose, but Thurmond did not end up using it.[36][37] Thurmond's health had become an item of concern by the evening of the 29th among his aides and theSenate physician George W. Calver, who threatened to personally remove him from the floor if senatorial staff could not convince Thurmond to end his speech.[27][38]
During the filibuster, Thurmond sustained himself on diced pieces ofpumpernickel bread and small pieces of ground steak.[26] He also broughtthroat lozenges andmalted milk tablets onto the floor with him in his pockets.[7][23] SenatorPaul Douglas ofIllinois brought Thurmond a pitcher oforange juice as noon approached on the 29th, but a staffer quickly put it out of his reach after Thurmond had drunk a glass to reduce the likelihood of him needing to leave for a restroom.[39]
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The filibuster failed to prevent the passage of the bill, and further failed to change the vote whatsoever.[22] The bill passed two hours after Thurmond finished speaking by a vote of 60–15,[18][40] and was signed into law by PresidentEisenhower less than two weeks later. The Civil Rights Act of 1957 was the first U.S. civil rights bill passed in 82 years.[3][41]
Thurmond received significant criticism, even from Democrats who signed or were aligned with the goals of theSouthern Manifesto, including Talmadge, Russell, and theDixiecrats as a whole.[42] Talmadge referred to the speech as a form ofgrandstanding, and Russell denounced it as "personal political aggrandizement".[43] These senators had received several telegrams during Thurmond's speech encouraging them to assist Thurmond in his filibuster by relieving him, and Thurmond's staff received correspondence from hundreds of Southerners congratulating and encouraging him.[26][40] TheSouthern Caucus did not join the filibuster, despite its popularity among their constituents, because (as Russell put it) the South had already secured a compromise in the bill which would be jeopardized by a filibuster and there was not enough support to prevent a cloture vote anyway.[40]
In 1964, Thurmond was involved in a second filibuster against theCivil Rights Act of 1964.[44] Later that year, heswitched his affiliation to the Republican Party.[45] The 1964 filibuster was carried out by a group of Southern senators and was only ended by a cloture vote.[46] Thurmond was repeatedly elected and served in the Senate for 48 years, retiring in 2003 at the age of 100 as the oldest U.S. senator ever.[18][47]
The filibuster did not use any "overtly racist language"; however, according to Gillian Brockell it is racist because Thurmond filibustered against a bill that protected the right of African Americans to vote.[22] In his 2012 biography of Thurmond,Strom Thurmond's America, Crespino noted the impact of Thurmond's filibuster and partial authorship of theSouthern Manifesto, a document written the previous year designed to unify the South againstschool integration.[48] He described these events as "[sealing] Thurmond's reputation as one of the South's lastConfederates, a champion of white southerners' campaign of 'massive resistance'" to civil rights.[49] He further argues that the filibuster was a way for Thurmond to uphold Southern ideas about white strength and endurance, while also burnishing his personal image of masculinity and health.[35]