Existing comment:
Proposed Use of "Calendar Wednesday" for FEPC
In 1961 Representative Adam Clayton Powell (D-NY) became chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee and the highest ranking African American in Congress. In 1963 the committee had reported out a Fair Employment Practices Committee bill that was awaiting action in the House Rules Committee, chaired by Representative Howard W. Smith (D-VA), an avid segregationist. Powell proposed that the bill bypass the Rules Committee through the "Calendar Wednesday" procedure, whereby a committee chairman could bring a bill to the floor on a particular Wednesday without going through the Rules Committee. He later dropped the idea for fear that it would undermine President Kennedy's pending civil rights bill. |