Notwithstanding the success of the March , the larger struggle was far from over . Three weeks later , a bomb exploded on Sunday , September 15 at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham ; by the end of the day , four African American children had died in the explosion , and two other children shot to death in the aftermath . Due to this resurgent violence , the civil rights legislation underwent some drastic amendments that critically endangered any prospects for its passage . An outraged president called congressional leaders to the White House and by the following day the original bill , without the additions , had enough votes to get it out of the House committee . Gaining Republican support , Senator Everett Dirksen promised the legislation would be brought to a vote , preventing a Senate filibuster . The following summer , on July 2 , the guarantees Kennedy proposed in his June 1963 speech became federal law , when President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964
a bomb exploded
16th Street Baptist Church bombing
Presidency of John F. Kennedy