The civil rights movement

History of the USA · The modern United States. The idea in plain words, the rules to remember, the mistake to avoid and a worked example, written and checked by Mega Lecture.

Test this topic free All History of the USA topics

The idea

After Reconstruction the Southern states built a system of legal segregation, the 'Jim Crow' laws, and kept Black citizens from voting by poll taxes, literacy tests and violence. The Supreme Court had accepted 'separate but equal' in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896).

The movement attacked this system in two ways. Lawyers went to court and won Brown v. Board of Education (1954). Ordinary people used non-violent direct action: boycotts, sit-ins and marches. Martin Luther King Jr. became its best-known leader after the Montgomery bus boycott.

Protest created pressure for federal law. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 ended legal segregation in public places, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 protected the right to vote.

Rules to remember

Brown v. Board of Education 1954: segregated public schools are unconstitutional (unanimous, Chief Justice Warren).
Montgomery bus boycott 1955 to 1956: began with the arrest of Rosa Parks, ended when the Supreme Court ruled bus segregation unconstitutional.
Little Rock 1957: Eisenhower sent federal troops to enforce school integration.
1963: Birmingham campaign, 'Letter from Birmingham Jail', March on Washington ('I Have a Dream', Lincoln Memorial).
Civil Rights Act 1964: banned segregation in public accommodations, and discrimination in employment on grounds of race, colour, religion, sex or national origin.
24th Amendment 1964: no poll tax in federal elections.
Selma marches 1965, then the Voting Rights Act 1965: banned literacy tests and sent federal officials to register voters.

Common mistake

Keep the two Acts apart. The 1964 Act deals with segregation and discrimination in public places and jobs; the 1965 Act deals with voting.

Worked example

In 1960 Black students sit at a 'whites only' lunch counter in a private shop and are refused service. Which later measure made that refusal illegal: Brown, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or the Voting Rights Act of 1965?

Brown applied to public schools, not to private businesses.
The Voting Rights Act concerns registration and voting only.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 banned discrimination in public accommodations such as restaurants, hotels and theatres.

Answer: The Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Ask about this

Type what you are stuck on. The helper finds the explanation, worked examples and the notes to read, free and instant.

Read the full notes

Full-course notes

Keep going

← The Second World War and the Cold War US government and political system →Take a History of the USA test