Summer
By the summer of 1969, more than 800,000 black voters are registered in the states covered by the Voting Rights Acts. Black registration has increased from 20% of the voting age population to 56%. In Mississippi alone, 60% of the black voting-age population is registered.
June
The Stonewall riots erupt on the 27th, marking the beginning of the gay rights movement.
July
The Department of Justice and HEW announce that strict compliance with timetables for integration will be dropped. The Nixon Administration files a motion in the Supreme Court to delay integration throughout the country. The Court denies the motion, but Nixon announces that he does not feel obligated to do any more than the minimum required by law. At Nixon’s direction, HEW Secretary Robert Finch asks the federal courts to delay desegregation measures for 33 school districts in Mississippi. A unanimous Supreme Court rejects the request in October in Alexander v. Holmes, 396 U.S. 19 (1969), unanimously declaring that Brown II’s “all deliberate speed” time frame has expired and that desegregated schools must therefore be achieved “at once.”
November
The Nixon administration expands federal affirmative action. The Department of Labor’s Order No. 4 declares that government contractors should set their own minority hiring targets but that the targets must be equal to the “minority ratio of the local applicant population.” In February, the Department issues a revised order, requiring all government contractors to file an affirmative action program within 120 days of signing a contract.