Changes

The '''civil rights movement''' was a movement towards racial equality and an end to segregation of [[African Americans]] that occurred in the [[United States]] from about 1953 to 1968, as courts and [[Congress]] made segregation illegal and imposed tough laws that allowed backs to vote.  

The '''civil rights movement''' was a movement towards racial equality and an end to segregation of [[African Americans]] that occurred in the [[United States]] from about 1953 to 1968, as courts and [[Congress]] made segregation illegal and imposed tough laws that allowed backs to vote.  

==Reconstruction==

==Reconstruction==

During [[Reconstruction]], Radical Republicans tried to guarantee equal rights for emancipated slaves after the [[American Civil War]]. They succeeded in passing the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments, which in theory required equal protection of the laws and an equal right to vote. However, these amendments were nullified by Jim Crow laws, Klan violence and massive Southern resistance.  

During [[Reconstruction]], Radical Republicans tried to guarantee equal rights for emancipated slaves after the [[American Civil War]]. They succeeded in passing the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments, which in theory required equal protection of the laws and an equal right to vote. President [[Ulysses Grant]] successfully suppressed the [[Ku Klux Klan]] when it used violence to turn back black gains.  The Republican coalition in the South fell apart in the 1870s, and conservative white [[Redeemers]] took control.  The Redeemers were paternalistic toward blacks but they confronted a [[Populist]] element in the 1890s that demanded strict segregation.  The Supreme Court allowed segregation in 1896, and black leaders such as [[Booker T. Washington]]] worked to build an alliance of black businessmen and farmers with benevolent whites, using education as the tool to eventually achieve equality. Militant blacks led by [[W.E.B. DuBois]] and the [[NAACP]] demanded immediate redress. For a brief while around 1920 militant black separatists gained strength.  While blacks slowly improved their economic status in the South in the 20th century, despite lynchings, they remained second class citizens with very little political power. Blacks began moving in large numbers to the North to meet the labor shortages during World War I and World War II.  By the 1950s they had a political base in Harlem (New York City) and Chicago, but still very little power.

 

==Modern Movement==

==Modern Movement==

The Supreme Court under Chief Justice [[Earl Warren]], a liberal Republican, issued [[Brown vs. Board of education]] in 1954, declaring legal segregation to be unconstitutional. It marked the culmination of a judicial movement that had been underway for a decade. It had the short-term effect of ending segregated schools in border states, and the long-term effect of ending legalized segregation in schools.   

The Supreme Court under Chief Justice [[Earl Warren]], a liberal Republican, issued [[Brown vs. Board of education]] in 1954, declaring legal segregation to be unconstitutional. It marked the culmination of a judicial movement that had been underway for a decade. It had the short-term effect of ending segregated schools in border states, and the long-term effect of ending legalized segregation in schools.