Apr. 22, 1964 - Senator Richard Russell (D-Ga.) demanded today that the Civil Rights Commission and other Federal agencies investigate the treatment of demonstrators who had stopped a subway train going to the New York World’s Fair.
On the Senate floor, he read from a news account of the demonstration, stressing its assertion that the demonstrators had been removed to a police station with their heads and faces bloody.
“I demand that the Civil Rights Commission pull some of its army of investigators, agents, advocates, and crusaders out of Southern states” to investigate, Russell said. He said that individuals were apparently “beaten and bloodied” for what he called a “minor offense” of pulling the subway emergency cord.
The Senator described himself as a “states righter” who favors having each state control its own affairs. He said, however, that it is time Federal agencies took a look at affairs in New York.
Russell, the strategy chief for southern Senators opposing the civil rights bill, said the Justice Department should also investigate whether Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy has any “instinct of fairness” in civil rights enforcement.
Senator James Eastland (D-Miss.), another outspoken opponent of the civil rights bill, commented that newspapers would be charging police brutality if the incident described by Russell had occurred in a Southern state.
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