civil rights movement
The national effort made by black people and their supporters in the 1950s and 1960s to eliminate segregation and gain equal rights. The first large episode in the movement, a boycott of the city buses in Montgomery, Alabama, was touched off by the refusal of one black woman, Rosa Parks, to give up her seat on a bus to a white person. A number of sit-ins and similar demonstrations followed. A high point of the civil rights movement was a rally by hundreds of thousands in Washington, D.C., in 1963, at which a leader of the movement, Martin Luther King, Jr., gave his “I have a dream” speech. The federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 authorized federal action against segregation in public accommodations, public facilities, and employment. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed after large demonstrations in Selma, Alabama, which drew some violent responses. The Fair Housing Act, prohibiting discrimination by race in housing, was passed in 1968.
After such legislative victories, the civil rights movement shifted emphasis toward education and changing the attitudes of white people. Some civil rights supporters turned toward militant movements (see Black Power), and several riots erupted in the late 1960s over racial questions (see Watts riots). The Bakke decision of 1978 guardedly endorsed affirmative action.
Words Nearby civil rights movement
The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
How to use civil rights movement in a sentence
But the real mystery and injustice came from Brooke being essentially written out of the history of the civil rights movement.
Ed Brooke: The Senate's Civil Rights Pioneer and Prophet of a Post-Racial America | John Avlon | January 4, 2015 | THE DAILY BEASTBut he also reminded the younger members of the crowd of the civil rights movement of the last century.
Sharpton Recalls Civil Rights Struggle in DC March Against Police Violence | Ben Jacobs | December 13, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTBlack-white relations had signifiers other than the overt events of the civil rights movement.
In 175 well-chosen words, he sums up the trials and the grit and bravery of the civil rights movement.
Martin Luther King’s Nobel Speech Is an Often Ignored Masterpiece | Malcolm Jones | October 16, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTThe video makes clear the struggle for marriage equality in the context of the wider post-Stonewall gay civil rights movement.
Watch This Amazing Ode to Marriage Equality, by Inaugural Poet Richard Blanco | Tim Teeman | September 21, 2014 | THE DAILY BEAST
World War II marked the beginning of an important step in the evolution of the civil rights movement.
Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 | Morris J. MacGregor, Jr.Time, however, was precisely what Forrestal lacked, given the increasing political strength of the civil rights movement.
Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 | Morris J. MacGregor, Jr.The influence of the church on the militant phase of the civil rights movement is one of the movement's salient characteristics.
Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 | Morris J. MacGregor, Jr.First, if only for the constancy and fervor of its demands, was the civil rights movement.
Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 | Morris J. MacGregor, Jr.
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