Navigating Discourse & Institutional Constraints: The Civil Rights Act of 1986

How did Congress come to enact the Fair Housing provision of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 after such a tumultuous struggle between conservative coalitions and racially liberal alliances?

I argue that the discourse and media coverage surrounding civil rights and its influence on key political actors brought the importance of housing legislation into the political arena using specific and strategic narratives. These narratives produced by the civil rights activists pushed opponents in the Senate to finally cooperate through the Dirksen compromise. The Kerner Commission and its language convinced opponents in the House to reevaluate their stances. The following article and its findings exemplify the challenge that path dependency poses to our modern political, social, and economic sectors.

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