Hubert Humphrey

As Democratic whip, Humphrey was floor manager of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, running a daily organisation to keep enough senators present to defeat quorum calls and courting Dirksen patiently rather than attacking him. His earlier proposals for health insurance for the elderly and a volunteer peace corps became Medicare and the Peace Corps. Since 1948, when he pushed a civil rights plank through the Democratic convention, he had been the party's leading civil rights legislator. Vietnam later overshadowed this record.