The Civil Rights Movement

The civil rights movement, which began in the 1950s, was a widespread effort throughout the United States to fight for greater equality for African-American citizens. The civil rights movement can be dated from 1955, when Martin Luther King, Jr., organized a bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, to protest segregation—African Americans had been required to sit in the back of buses and to give up their seats to white people. A series of federal actions and legislation designed to expand and protect the rights of African Americans followed throughout the 1950s and 1960s. In 1957, federal troops were sent to Little Rock, Arkansas, to protect the rights of African Americans to attend integrated public schools. In 1960, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act, which was designed to protect the voting rights of African Americans. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 further ensured far-reaching protection of civil rights to...