The Civil Rights Act 1964 was one of the most important pieces of legislation enacted during my life. And if I had any doubt about that, those doubts would have been quickly erased recently when I came across two complaints that I had filed in 1965 with the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

But that’s getting ahead of the story.

The story begins in Tuscaloosa, Ala., my hometown. Similar stories can be told by millions of African-Americans that grew up in the Deep South during the 1950s and 1960s. In my case, it began in 1965 when I saw my mother (Martha L. Brownlee) standing on the front porch of our housing project crying because neither my stepfather – whose eyes were glued to an NBA basketball game on television – nor one of my uncles –who, according to my Big Mama, would lie if you looked at him hard – would take Mama back to church for an afternoon program. I told my Mama that day that I would work that summer and save up enough money to purchase us a car. I did, buying a 1960, green, Corvair. I taught my mother to drive that summer and accompanied her to take her driver’s test.

At the time, I was 18 years old. And I had known from two years earlier, when I obtained my license, that when driver’s tests were administered at the Tuscaloosa County Courthouse, Blacks had to wait until every White person, young and old, had been waited on before they could take the exam. We were segregated on one side of the room. I knew all this but it affected me more when I saw my mother subjected to this humiliation.

Emboldened by the 1964 Civil Rights Act, passed a year earlier, I filed a complaint with the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. Dated August 23, 1965, my complaint stated: “The Alabama highway patrolman, Officer Skinner, discriminates in the seating arrangements of persons desiring to take the examination for driver’s license. This month he practiced discrimination when my mother went to take her written exam, giving preference to the white applicants regardless of the time or order they entered the room. On that same day, he asked a Negro man to move to the other side of the room (Tuscaloosa County Courthouse).”

I also filed a complaint against my hometown newspaper, The Tuscaloosa News. Later in life, I would always tell people how ironic it was that fresh out of Knoxville College in Tennessee, I could get a job with Sports Illustrated, the largest sports magazine in the world, yet couldn’t land a job with my hometown newspaper. I’ve known that I wanted to be a journalist since I was in the 8th grade and it always bothered me that my local newspaper, among other things, carried segregated classified ads.

“The Tuscaloosa News continues to publish ads which discriminate,” I observed in my written complaint to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. “This happens daily and it humiliates one of the Negro race. Enclosed is a news clipping to verify the above statement (August 20, 1965).”

Section 77 of the classifieds that day was designated “Colored Rentals.” An ad under “Male Help Wanted” read: “COLORED MEN FOR CAR WASHERS, steamers and buffers. Apply in person to Circus Minit Wash, 409 Birmingham Highway.” An ad in the “Female Help Wanted” section read, “WAITRESSES AND COOKS – Experienced, white – Apply in person to Pete’s Steakhouse, McCrory Village or Pete’s Steak House, Bridge Ave.”

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights referred my complaints to the appropriate federal agencies. Each wrote to me essentially saying there was nothing they could do about the racial discrimination. In time, however, both practices were discontinued and that can be attributed to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas, became a fierce advocate of the bill and used his experience in the Senate to end what became known as Congress’ longest debate.

One section of the law states, “All persons shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, and accommodations of any place of public accommodation, as defined in this section, without discrimination or segregation on the ground of race, color, religion, or national origin.”

That brought an end to the overt racism that had African-Americans taking a back seat to Whites.