<P> The Civil Rights Act of 1957, Pub. L. 85--315, 71 Stat. 634, enacted September 9, 1957, a federal voting rights bill, was the first federal civil rights legislation passed by the United States Congress since the Civil Rights Act of 1875 . Its purpose was to show the federal government's support for racial equality after the US Supreme Court's 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka . </P> <P> Opposition to the Act, including the longest one - person filibuster in US history, limited its immediate impact . The Act, however, paved the way for a series of more effective civil rights bills in the 1960s . </P> <P> Following the Supreme Court ruling in Brown, which eventually led to the integration, also called desegregation, of public schools, Southern whites began a campaign of "Massive Resistance ." Violence against blacks rose; in Little Rock, Arkansas where US President Dwight D. Eisenhower had to order in federal troops to protect nine children integrating into a public school, the first time the US federal government ordered troops in the South since the Reconstruction era . There had been continued physical assaults against suspected activists and bombings of schools and churches in the South . The Eisenhower administration proposed legislation to protect blacks' right to vote . </P> <P> The goal of the 1957 Civil Rights Act was to ensure that all Americans could exercise their right to vote . By 1957, only about 20% of blacks were registered to vote . Despite being the majority in numerous counties and congressional districts in the South, most blacks had been effectively disfranchised by discriminatory voter registration rules and laws in those states since the late 19th and early 20th centuries that were heavily instituted and propagated by Southern Democrats . Civil rights organizations had collected evidence of discriminatory practices, such as the administration of literacy and comprehension tests and poll taxes . While the states had the right to establish rules for voter registration and elections, the federal government found an oversight role in ensuring that citizens could exercise the constitutional right to vote for federal officers: electors for president and vice president and members of the US Congress . </P>

Where did the civil rights act of 1957 take place