Why weren't executive orders used more during the Civil Rights Movement?

This may be a stupid question, but I'm taking a class in which we've discussed the Civil Rights Movement and I am in this section of my timeline and a question I've had hasn't been able to be answered.

Why weren't Executive Orders used more during the Civil Rights Movement (especially during the JFK and LBJ Administrations) to enforce change? couldn't they have done this with justification from laws already passed during reconstruction, such as the enforcement acts and

If this isn't a possibility could anyone explain to me why that is the case, or is it just an example of a more official route being taken through Congress and to have less of an impact on possible elections? I've just thought that if the executive order has had the power to end habeas corpus and inter Japanese-Americans it could have had the power to do this as well.
 
This may be a stupid question, but I'm taking a class in which we've discussed the Civil Rights Movement and I am in this section of my timeline and a question I've had hasn't been able to be answered.

Why weren't Executive Orders used more during the Civil Rights Movement (especially during the JFK and LBJ Administrations) to enforce change? couldn't they have done this with justification from laws already passed during reconstruction, such as the enforcement acts and

If this isn't a possibility could anyone explain to me why that is the case, or is it just an example of a more official route being taken through Congress and to have less of an impact on possible elections? I've just thought that if the executive order has had the power to end habeas corpus and inter Japanese-Americans it could have had the power to do this as well.

The reason that it was felt necessary to address private discrimination in public accomodations and housing through new legislation--rather than through enforcement of existing laws--is that it was not until 1968 that the Supreme Court interpreted the Civil Rights Act of 1866 as prohibiting private discrimination. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jones_v._Alfred_H._Mayer_Co.
 
Because Congress was willing to work with the President for the good of the country.The cold war was going on and the Communists were trying to make America look like a rasist country.
 
Because Congress was willing to work with the President for the good of the country.The cold war was going on and the Communists were trying to make America look like a rasist country.

"Trying" lol.

Anyway, because it wasn't necessary, the bigots weren't as good with the obfuscations as today. Even your average do-nothing negative peace type citizens could see the assholes screaming at children were in the wrong.

Plus LBJ was just that much of a badass. It's like asking why the Terminator didn't get help. Except LBJ actually won. Hard.
 
so theoretically it would have been possible to do it through orders rather than legislation had the president not been able to push it through Congress?
 
It was more because the southern Democrats ran all of the committees so if a POTUS tried something they would strangle his agenda
 
so theoretically it would have been possible to do it through orders rather than legislation had the president not been able to push it through Congress?

There is no magical power in executive orders. They have to be in compliance with the Constitution and the laws. In 1963-64, the prevailing view of the law was still that the 14th Amendment only applied to state action, and the Supreme Court had not yet held that the civil rights act of 1866 (which was passed pursuant to the 13th, rather than the 14th, amendment) barred private discrimination in public accommodations, jobs, and housing. The only way of attacking private discrimination that seemed likely to hold up in court was through new legislation using the commerce power (which the Supreme Court had interpreted broadly since 1937).
 
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JFK did in fact sign several executive orders relating to civil rights. Most famously Executive Order 11063 (November 20, 1962) prohibiting discrimination in federally financed housing. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=59002 (He had criticized Ike for not doing so "with a stroke of a pen" but then himself delayed it for a long time, hoping not to alienate southern Democrats in Congress whose support he needed for New Frontier legislation. As I have noted, he started getting pens in the mail from irate civil rights supporters...) http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=59002

Executive Order 10925 (March 6, 1961), "Establishing the President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity," http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=58863

Executive Order 11100 (March 30, 1963) "Establishing the President's Commission on Registration and Voting Participation" http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=59039

Executive Order 11114 (June 22, 1963), "Extending the Authority of the President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity" http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=59053

Executive Order 11118 (September 10, 1963) "Providing Assistance for Removal of Unlawful Obstructions of Justice in the State of Alabama" http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=59057

These were all pretty clearly within the president's constitutional and statutory authority.
 

bguy

Donor
There's also President Truman's Executive Order 9981 (July 26, 1948) that banned racial discrimination in the military.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_9981

President Eisenhower's Executive Order 10730 (September 24, 1957) federalizing the Arkansas National Guard and ordering the Secretary of Defense to enforce the federal court orders desegregating the schools in Little Rock.

http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/content/desegregation-doc.html

And President Johnson's Executive Order 11246 (September 24, 1965) that prohibited racial discrimination in hiring for government contractors and required government contractors who employed more than 51 people or had federal government contracts worth more than $50,000 to increase the participation of minorities and women in their workplaces if those groups were underrepresented.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_11246
 
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