When there is a crisis of the conscience, the natural human response on the part of many churchgoers is to put a little something extra into the collection plate on Sunday. That is roughly what the nation did in 1957 when it created the Commission on Civil Rights.
Just three years previously the Supreme Court, in Brown, had invalidated the old separate-but-equal rule. Some of the southern states had resolved to resist the decision with all their might. Civilrights groups had countered by mobilizing for a fight that would last longer than they expected.