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Article: Civil Rights Movement
- Article from:
- Dictionary of American History
- Author:
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CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT.
The civil rights movement comprised efforts of grassroots activists and national leaders to obtain for African Americans the basic rights guaranteed to American citizens in the Constitution, including the rights to due process and "equal protection of the laws" (Fourteenth Amendment) and the right to vote. Although the 1950s and 1960s represent the height of the mass civil rights movement of the twentieth century, activists had sought basic rights for African Americans since before the Civil War.
Civil Rights 1865
–
1945
Between 1865 and 1870, Congress passed amendments to abolish slavery (Thirteenth Amendment), accord citizenship to ...