It’s almost at the edge of living memory: President Lyndon Johnson signing the Civil Rights Act in July 1964, urging Americans to “close the springs of racial poison.”

The legislation prohibited discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin at places serving the public — such as swimming pools and restaurants — as well as in education, hiring, promotion and firing and voting. And it gave the federal government powers to enforce those guarantees.

It was the beginning of the end of Jim Crow, the often brutally enforced web of racist laws and practices born in the South to subjugate Black Americans.

Members of the last generation to live under unabashed Jim Crow are among voters in a historic presidential election that has been roiled by racial and other divisions.

Read the full Reuters story here.