civil rights movement

1. 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.

Example Sentences

In the two decades John Roberts has served as chief justice, the Supreme Court he presides over has repeatedly decimated the Voting Rights Act, striking a series of savage blows to the law long hailed as the crown jewel of the Civil Rights Movement.

From Slate

“Like the civil rights movement. Blacks, Jews, whites, churches, everybody sat down around the table and decided to have a strategy. And unfortunately, that’s the only thing we have. It’s long and it’s hard, but that door is still open. It’s us, individually and collectively, who have to make that choice.”

From Los Angeles Times

Aptheker and other students had planned a peaceful protest, only to have police roll up and arrest a graduate student named Jack Weinberg, a lanky guy with floppy hair and a mustache who had spent the summer working for the civil rights movement.

From Los Angeles Times

Huerta, a lion of the Latino civil rights movement who helped organize farm workers, told reporters Monday that the ongoing federal immigration raids were the worst she has ever seen, and that an appeal to the the United Nations was the only option left.

From Los Angeles Times

The Civil Rights Movement, which was an unfinished revolution but did notch major achievements, became more or less accepted as part of America’s social fabric.

From Slate