American civil rights movement

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Participants, some carry American flags, march in the civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, U.S. in 1965. The Selma-to-Montgomery, Alabama., civil rights march, 1965. Voter registration drive, Voting Rights Act

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President Lyndon B. Johnson reaches to shake hands with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. after presenting the civil rights leader with one of the 72 pens used to sign the Civil Rights Act in Washington, D.C. on July 2, 1964.

Civil Rights Act of 1964

In 1958, Mildred Loving, a black woman, and her white husband, Richard Loving, went to Washington to get married. After they returned to Central Point, police raided their home and arrested them

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Police began to move in the area of 12th Street and Clairmont as hundreds of people fill the street with violence gaining momentum during the 1967 Detroit Race Riot.

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African Americans demonstrating for voting rights in front of the White House as police and others watch, March 12, 1965. One sign reads, "We demand the right to vote everywhere." Voting Rights Act, civil rights.

Timeline of the American Civil Rights Movement

Two chicks near an egg with a white background (poultry, chick, chickens, birds).

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earthquake. Heavily damaged school in the town of Yingxiu after a major earthquake struck China's Sichuan Province on May 12, 2008.

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American civil rights movement Article

When did the American civil rights movement start?

Written and fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

The American civil rights movement started in the mid-1950s. A major catalyst in the push for civil rights was in December 1955, when NAACP activist Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a public bus to a white man.