Civil Rights and Public Accommodations: The Heart of Atlanta Motel and McClung Cases

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Civil Rights and Public Accommodations: The Heart of Atlanta Motel and McClung Cases

by Richard C. Cortner

University Press of Kansas * 2001 * 240 pages * $29.95

Reviewed by David E. Bernstein

Title II of the 1964 Civil Rights Act bans discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, or national origin in public accommodations. The law reflected a growing belief that any establishment that holds itself out as open to the public should not be permitted to discriminate. The Act had broad public support, except in the South.

There were some, however, who advanced principled objections to Title II. Ayn Rand, for example, wrote that "[j]ust as …