Then and Now: How the Filibuster Perpetuates White Supremacy

The filibuster, a parliamentary procedure allowing for extended debate and obstruction in the U.S. Senate, has a long and troubling history deeply entwined with the suppression of Black rights and progress. 

One of the earliest proponents of the filibuster was South Carolina Senator John C. Calhoun. Beginning in the mid-1800s, Calhoun led a group of pro-slavery, segregationist senators in blocking debate on any legislation that threatened to take away power from white Southerners who relied on slave labor to maintain their wealth. A strong advocate of Southern nationalism and secessionism, Calhoun used the filibuster to oppose both the abolition of slavery and attempts to limit its expansion into the western territories. He was also a vocal supporter of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act, which required that citizens and local law enforcement in free states assist in the return of escaped slaves. 

In the Reconstruction Era following the Civil War, the filibuster underwent significant transformation from a seldom-used tactic to a strategic tool used to uphold white supremacy. Although Republicans dominated both houses of Congress during Reconstruction, any efforts to continue the advancement of Black civil rights and solidify that progress through legislation still received considerable opposition from the Democrat minority.In 1870 and 1871, a series of bills designed to enforce and implement the newly passed Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, as well as the Civil Rights Act of 1866, were introduced to Congress.

Known as The Enforcement Acts, the bills worked to counteract the political violence against Black Americans that was sweeping the South and empowered the President to use military power to protect Black suffrage on a federal level. Democrats filibustered the measure, arguing that it infringed on states' rights, but the House ultimately passed it after 19 hours of debate in the Senate. 

These legislative efforts to advance civil rights for newly emancipated Black Americans continued throughout Reconstruction, but in the South where redeemers were still in control, poll taxes and literacy tests began to emerge as a new form of disenfranchisement. During the Redemption Era, which followed Reconstruction and preceded Jim Crow, legislation like the Federal Elections Bill of 1890 sought federal oversight of elections to ensure Black suffrage was protected in the South, but because of the filibuster, failed to pass.

In the House, the bill was the subject of brief debate but managed to stay alive. In the Senate, however, the bill was met with filibusters launched by Southern Democrats that stifled any action on the legislation. Senator Arthur Gorman of Maryland and his Democratic allies George Gray of Delaware and Matthew Butler of South Carolina were among the chief dissenters. The so-called “force bill” was in their eyes, a direct challenge to state sovereignty and they did everything in their power to prevent it from becoming law. 

For over a month, Democrats engaged in drawn-out speeches and diversions, and used various parliamentary rules to stop the “inflammatory” Elections bill from passing. Republicans tried to end the filibuster by remaining silent and one of the authors of the bill, Senator George Hoar of Massachusetts, even tried to invoke cloture but to no avail. Ultimately, debate on another bill, the Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890, was prioritized over the Federal Elections legislation. After striking a deal with Democrats, Republicans successfully pushed through a Senate resolution to set aside the bill and when it was picked back up again a month later, it was officially voted down. 

The 1896 case of Plessy v. Ferguson only furthered the normalization of Black voter suppression. Affirmed by the Supreme Court’s decision, the “separate but equal” doctrine was used for decades as legal justification for segregation on all levels. The conditions Black Americans were subject to were not “equal” at all and resulted in America’s second Founding Era or Jim Crow. 

White supremacy thrived during this period and by the late 1890s, Black Americans were essentially completely removed from the electoral process with no way of voting to change any of the laws that were used to maintain their disenfranchisement. 

During Jim Crow, the filibuster emerged as a new and powerful way to perpetuate the disenfranchisement, marginalization, and terrorizing of Black voters in the postwar South. This pattern of obstruction continued into the early 20th century with the filibustering of the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill in 1918. 

Introduced by Missouri Representative Leonidas Dyer, a white Republican, and endorsed by the NAACP, the bill aimed to address the violence and terror inflicted upon Black communities through lynching. Since the end of Reconstruction, lynching had become an increasingly violent tool of racial control used by white Southerners as a means to reestablish white supremacy and assert economic and political power. 

Throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, white mobs regularly targeted Black Americans who were politically active, economically successful, or perceived to be in violation of the Southern Jim Crow order, in extremely violent, often fatal, lynchings. These racially and politically motivated attacks were often public and routinely drew large crowds who watched and participated in gruesome acts of violence against Black victims. 

These public lynchings were often photographed by white Americans and made into postcards that they would then mail to friends and loved ones to commemorate and celebrate their terrorism.

In a report on lynching in America, the Equal Justice Initiative documented over 4,000 racial terror lynchings in twelve Southern states between the end of Reconstruction in 1877 and the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement in 1950. 

By empowering the federal government to prosecute those who participated in lynchings and fine counties who failed to prevent the violence, the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill would have been a historic victory and landmark legislation for the protection of Black civil rights and freedom. 

Congressman Hatton W. Sumners, a Texas Democrat, led the opposition, questioning the constitutionality of the bill and arguing that Dyer had no statistics to support his claim that in many cases, victims of lynchings were not actually guilty of the crimes which they were being accused of. 

After almost a month of filibustering, Southern Democrats succeeded in preventing the passage of the bill in the Senate and used the same tactics on other anti-lynching bills that followed. 

In fact, lynching was not made a federal crime until 2022 when the Senate unanimously passed the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act, classifying lynching as a federal hate crime. The act was named after Emmett Till, a 14-year-old who was lynched in Mississippi in 1955 and the bill is the culmination of over a century’s work to enact anti-lynching legislation.

“After more than 200 failed attempts to outlaw lynching, Congress is finally succeeding in taking the long overdue action by passing the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act,” Senator Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on the Senate floor. “Hallelujah. It’s long overdue.” 

Unsurprisingly, one of the most notable instances of filibustering occurred during the debate over the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The legislation sought to make discriminatory practices based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin illegal and was a cornerstone of the Civil Rights Movement. However, Southern senators, staunchly opposed to desegregation and equal rights for Black Americans, attempted to derail the bill through the use of the filibuster. 

Led by segregationist Democrat Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, these senators engaged in marathon speeches and other procedural tactics for over 24 hours to delay the legislative process and attempt to deny Black Americans their full Constitutional rights. 

Thurmond argued that the new bill was unnecessary because states already had laws that protected voting rights and allowed Black Americans to vote freely. This of course was not the case, but in an effort to prove his point and further delay a vote on the bill, he read all state voting laws, as well as the federal code, and a few Supreme Court decisions.

Despite these efforts, civil rights advocates successfully gained bipartisan support, and the Civil Rights Act was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964. 

It is also important to note that it was in response to the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, that a major flip in American political parties occurred. After seeing how Republican presidential candidates like Barry Goldwater spoke out against the law and were no longer committed to the protection of civil rights, many Black voters who had been loyal to the Republican Party since Reconstruction became Democrats. 

Similarly, as Democrats began seeking reform on things like abortion and school prayer in the 1960s and 70s, Southern Democrats became less and less aligned with their party’s commitment to civil rights and a majority were Republicans by the 1980s. 

Today, the filibuster’s influence persists, continuing to hinder efforts to protect civil rights as seen in Barack Obama’s presidency and beyond. 

In the six decades before Obama took office, only 20 presidential nominees to executive positions had been filibustered. But in a little under five years, 30 of Obama’s nominees were filibustered.

This is no coincidence. As we have seen throughout history, the filibuster transformed from an arguably neutral parliamentary tool to a weapon used by racists who want to prevent Black and non-white empowerment and any legislation that legally protects their rights. Understanding this, it should come as no surprise that the filibuster was used more frequently during Obama’s presidency than during that of George W. Bush or Bill Clinton.

The constant use of the filibuster under Obama follows the same pattern seen in its use during and after Reconstruction by white conservatives who sought to limit the legal power and protections of Black Americans. Filibusters, and the threat of the filibuster, were so common during Obama’s terms that the Senate actually changed the legislation regarding the filibuster in 2013 to no longer require a 60-vote majority on all presidential nominees.

However the rule change did not include Supreme Court nominees and just three years later, the filibuster was used again to block President Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the Court in 2016. Following the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell declared that any appointment by President Obama would be “null and void,” effectively denying Garland a fair hearing and vote. McConnell cited the Senate’s constitutional right to act as a check on presidential nominations and by threatening a filibuster, Scalia’s seat remained vacant until the next presidency. 

Trump campaigned on his plan to fill that vacant seat with a Republican and once elected, nominated Neil Gorsuch, a conservative originalist, to the court. 

Obama called the filibuster a “Jim Crow relic” in 2020, highlighting its racist origins and continued misuse to thwart progress on voting rights and other vital issues. As more progressives begin to call for its abolition or reform, it is clear how the preservation of the filibuster both perpetuates systemic inequities and impedes efforts to address racial justice. 

Since before Reconstruction, white conservative wielders of the filibuster have sought to preserve their privilege and power at the expense of Black Americans, obstructing democracy and halting progress. The filibuster must serve as a stark reminder of the enduring legacy of white supremacy in American politics and a barrier we must overcome to achieve justice and continue Reconstruction.