On August 28, 1957, Strom Thurmond, a Democratic United States senator from South Carolina, began a filibuster intended to prevent the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957. The filibuster, an extended speech designed to stall legislation, began at 8:54p.m. and lasted until 9:12p.m. the following day, a duration of 24 hours and 18 minutes. This made the filibuster the longest single-person filibuster in United States Senate history, a record that still stands . The filibuster focused primarily on asserting that the bill in question, which provided for expanded federal protection of African American voting rights, was both unnecessary and unconstitutional, and Thurmond recited from documents including the election laws of each U.S. state, Supreme Court decisions, and George Washington's Farewell Address. Thurmond focused on a particular provision in the bill that dealt with certain court cases, but opposed the entirety of the bill. Thurmond, an ardent segregationist, had served in the Senate for only three years before the speech, but was politically well-known even before his election to the body. Although the filibuster was supported by many South Carolinians and citizens of other Southern states, Thurmond's decision to filibuster the bill went against a previous agreement among Southern senators. As a result, Thurmond received mixed praise and criticism for his speech. In more recent years, Thurmond's filibuster has been described as racist because of its goal of preventing access to voting for black Americans. Nevertheless, the bill passed two hours after the filibuster and was signed into law by President Dwight D. Eisenhower within two weeks. Background and goals The Fifteenth Amendment had guaranteed citizens of all races the right to vote in 1870, but state laws, poll taxes, and other institutions still prevented many African Americans from voting. The Civil Rights Act of 1957 was designed to federally secure and protect the right of African Americans to vote, and was supported by the NAACP alongside the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration. The Act aimed to protect this right by establishing a Civil Rights Division within the Department of Justice and a U.S. Civil Rights Commission. In the Senate, many Democrats from Southern states were angered by the bill. The original bill had passed in the House of Representatives in June, but when the bill was sent to the Senate it was significantly watered down by a compromise to satisfy the Democrats. The Senate compromise removed a provision that