At ten o’clock in the morning on June 10, 1964, Senator Robert Byrd, a ‘states’ rights’ Southern Democrat, finally sat down.
His fourteen-hour filibuster of President Johnson’s civil rights bill was over.
The votes needed to end it had been found and 27 of them were Republican.
It was the work of Everett Dirksen (R. IL, shown above on that day), the Senate…