A Texas-born president's signature helped change life in Dallas in 1964

SMU Alumnus Zan Holmes talks about Dallas in 1964, when President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

by JOHN McCAA
WFAA

Texas still had a poll tax on state elections when the Civil Rights Act was signed.

In Dallas, the city council was all white, but changes were coming.

The day President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, Dallas schools and public life were still segregated.

Rev. Zan Holmes was a seminary student at SMU at the time.

“We had demonstrations, we had marches -- it was all here, the dissatisfaction with the way things were," he said. "We could have easily had a riot.”