LibGuides: Civil Rights Movement: Home

What is the Civil Rights Movement?

The civil rights movement was a struggle for social justice that took place mainly during the 1950s and 1960s for blacks to gain equal rights under the law in the United States. The Civil War had officially abolished slavery, but it didn’t end discrimination against blacks—they continued to endure the devastating effects of racism, especially in the South. By the mid-20th century, African Americans had had more than enough of prejudice and violence against them. They, along with many whites, mobilized and began an unprecedented fight for equality that spanned two decades. (Continue reading from the History Channel)

Learn More about the Civil Rights Movement and its History

Jim Crow Laws (PBS)
Little Rock Nine (National Museum of African American History and Culture)
Plessy v. Ferguson (Thirteen)
Freedom Rides (Stanford University and The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute)
Rose Parks (National Women's History Museum)
Martin Luther King Jr. (The Nobel Prize)
March on Washington (NAACP)
Selma to Montgomery March (Stanford University and The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute)
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 (National Archives)
Voting Rights Act of 1965 (National Archives)
Fair Housing Act of 1968 (U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development)

Books and Videos about the Civil Rights Movement

In 1964 Congress passed Public Law 88-352 (78 Stat. 241), popularly known as the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The provisions of this civil rights act forbade discrimination on the basis of sex as well as race in hiring, promoting, and firing. The word "sex" was added at the last moment. According to the West Encyclopedia of American Law, Representative Howard W. Smith (D-VA) added the word. His critics argued that Smith, a conservative Southern opponent of Federal civil rights, did so to kill the entire bill (a so-called “poison pill” amendment). Smith, however, argued that he had amended the bill in keeping with his support of Alice Paul and the National Women's Party with whom he had been working. Martha W. Griffiths (D-MI) led the effort to keep the word "sex" in the bill. (Continue reading from the National Archives)