Everett Dirksen

Everett McKinley Dirksen (January 4, 1896 – September 7, 1969) was a Republican U.S. Congressman and Senator from Illinois. He helped pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964, raising civil rights legislation above the state level, where it had remained blocked for decades. He later offered his support for the Open Housing Act of 1968, another landmark piece of Civil Rights legislation. Pragmatic and broadly non-partisan, he shifted from being a major Republican critic of Truman and confidant of Eisenhower to become an ardent Republican supporter of LBJ. He was one of the Senate's strongest supporters of Johnson's expansion of the Vietnam War.

External links

• Stan Mendenhall, "Everett Dirksen and the 1964 Civil Rights Act."
• Abstract of Byron C. Hulsey, Everett Dirksen and His Presidents: how a Senate giant shaped American politics U. Kansas, 2000.
• "The Dirksen Congressional Research Center"