African Americans - Civil Rights, Equality, Activism (2024)

Table of Contents
Recent News Urban upheaval FAQs

inAfrican Americans

verifiedCite

While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies.Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions.

Select Citation Style

Feedback

Thank you for your feedback

Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article.

External Websites

Britannica Websites

Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students.

  • African Americans - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11)
  • Black Americans, or African Americans - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)

printPrint

Please select which sections you would like to print:

verifiedCite

While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies.Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions.

Select Citation Style

Feedback

Thank you for your feedback

Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article.

External Websites

Britannica Websites

Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students.

  • African Americans - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11)
  • Black Americans, or African Americans - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)

Also known as: Afro-American, Black American

Written by

Hollis Lynch Professor Emeritus of History, Columbia University. Author of Edward Wilmot Blyden: Pan-Negro Patriot, 1832-1912.

Hollis Lynch

Fact-checked by

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Last Updated: Article History

At the end of World War II, African Americans were poised to make far-reaching demands to end racism. They were unwilling to give up the minimal gains that had been made during the war.

Recent News

Aug. 19, 2024, 6:30 PM ET (AP)

50 years on, Harlem Week shows how a New York City neighborhood went from crisis to renaissance

Aug. 7, 2024, 7:06 PM ET (AP)

Everything Simone Biles did at the Paris Olympics was amplified. She thrived in the spotlight

Aug. 7, 2024, 5:23 PM ET (AP)

Vance and other Trump allies amplify a false claim about Harris' racial identity

Aug. 7, 2024, 5:02 PM ET (AP)

Georgia superintendent says Black studies course can be taught after legal opinion

July 31, 2024, 10:19 PM ET (AP)

Donald Trump falsely suggests Kamala Harris misled voters about her race

The campaign for African American rights—usually referred to as the civil rights movement or the freedom movement—went forward in the 1940s and ’50s in persistent and deliberate steps. In the courts the NAACP successfully attacked restrictive covenants in housing, segregation in interstate transportation, and discrimination in public recreational facilities. In 1954 the U.S. Supreme Court issued one of its most significant rulings. In the case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (Kansas), the court overturned the “separate but equal” ruling of the Plessy v. Ferguson case and outlawed segregation in the country’s public school systems. White citizens’ councils in the South fought back with legal maneuvers, economic pressure, and even violence. Rioting by white mobs temporarily closed Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, when nine Black students were admitted to it in 1957, prompting Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower to dispatch federal troops to protect the students.

Direct nonviolent action by African Americans achieved its first major success in the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott of 1955–56, led by the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. This protest was prompted by the quiet but defiant act of an African American woman, Rosa Parks, who refused to give up her seat on a segregated bus to a white passenger on December 1, 1955. Resistance to African American demands for the desegregation of Montgomery’s buses was finally overcome when the Supreme Court ruled in November 1956 that the segregation of public transportation facilities was unconstitutional. To coordinate further civil rights action, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) was established in 1957 under King’s guidance.

Within 15 years after the Supreme Court outlawed all-white primary elections in 1944, the registered Black electorate in the South increased more than fivefold, reaching 1.25 million in 1958. The Civil Rights Act of 1957, the first federal civil rights legislation to be passed since 1875, authorized the federal government to take legal measures to prevent a citizen from being denied voting rights.

Beginning in February 1960 in Greensboro, North Carolina, student sit-ins forced the desegregation of lunch counters in drug and variety stores throughout the South. In April 1960 leaders of the sit-in movement organized the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). In the spring of 1961, to defy segregation on interstate buses, “freedom rides” in Alabama and Mississippi were organized by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) under its national director, James Farmer.

The NAACP, SCLC, SNCC, and CORE cooperated on a number of local projects, such as the drive to register Black voters in Mississippi, launched in 1961. In April 1964 they worked together to help found the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, which later that year challenged the seating of an all-white Mississippi delegation at the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Activist African Americans adopted “Freedom Now” as their slogan to recognize the Emancipation Proclamation centennial in 1963 (indeed, a short-lived all-Black Freedom Now Party was formed in Michigan and ran candidates in the general election of 1964). National attention in the spring of 1963 was focused on Birmingham, Alabama, where King was leading a civil rights drive. The Birmingham authorities used dogs and fire hoses to quell civil rights demonstrators, and there were mass arrests. In September 1963 four African American girls were killed by a bomb thrown into a Birmingham church.

Civil rights activities in 1963 culminated in a March on Washington organized by Randolph and civil rights activist Bayard Rustin. From the Lincoln Memorial, King addressed the throng of some 250,000 demonstrators gathered on the Mall. The march helped secure the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which forbade discrimination in voting, public accommodations, and employment and permitted the attorney general of the United States to deny federal funds to local agencies that practiced discrimination. Efforts to increase African American voter participation were also helped by the ratification in 1964 of the Twenty-fourth Amendment to the Constitution, which banned the poll tax.

The difficulties in registering African American voters in the South were dramatized in 1965 by events in Selma, Alabama. Civil rights demonstrators there were attacked by police who used tear gas, whips, and clubs. Thousands of demonstrators were arrested. As a result, however, their cause won national sympathy and support. Led by King and by John Lewis of SNCC, some 40,000 protesters from all over the country marched from Selma to Montgomery, the Alabama state capital. Shortly thereafter Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which eliminated all discriminatory qualifying tests for voter registrants and provided for the appointment of federal registrars.

Urban upheaval

During the 1960s the country’s predominantly African American inner cities were swept by outbreaks of violence. Their basic causes were long-standing grievances—police insensitivity and brutality, inadequate educational and recreational facilities, high unemployment, poor housing, and high prices. Yet the outbreaks were mostly unplanned. Unlike the “race riots” of earlier decades, when whites menaced African Americans, the outbreaks of the 1960s involved the looting and burning of mostly white-owned property in Black neighborhoods by African Americans. The fighting that took place was mainly between African American youths and the police. Hundreds of lives were lost, and tens of millions of dollars’ worth of property was destroyed. The most serious disturbances occurred in the Watts area of Los Angeles, California, in August 1965 and in Newark, New Jersey, and Detroit, Michigan, in July 1967.

During the 1960s, militant Black nationalist and Marxist-oriented African American organizations were created, among them the Revolutionary Action Movement, the Deacons for Defense, and the Black Panther Party. Under such leaders as Stokely Carmichael and H. Rap Brown, SNCC adopted increasingly radical policies. Some of the militant Black leaders were arrested, and others, such Eldridge Cleaver, fled the country. This loss of leadership seriously weakened some of the organizations.

Black Power” became popular in the late 1960s. The slogan was first used by Carmichael in June 1966 during a civil rights march in Mississippi. However, the concept of Black power predated the slogan. Essentially, it refers to all the attempts by African Americans to maximize their political and economic power.

Among the outstanding modern advocates of Black Power was Malcolm X, who rose to national prominence in the early 1960s as a minister in the Nation of Islam, or Black Muslim movement. Malcolm broke with the leader of the Black Muslims, Elijah Muhammad, and founded the Organization of Afro-American Unity before he was assassinated in February 1965.

The Black Power movement was stimulated by the growing pride of Black Americans in their African heritage. This pride was strikingly symbolized by the Afro hairstyle and the African garments worn by many young Black men and women. Black pride was also manifested in student demands for Black studies programs, Black teachers, and dedicated facilities and in an upsurge in African American culture and creativity. The new slogan—updated from Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes—was “Black is beautiful.”

The Vietnam War, in which African American soldiers participated in disproportionately high numbers, tended to divide the Black leadership and divert white liberals from the civil rights movement. Some NAACP and National Urban League leaders minimized the war’s impact on the African American home front. A tougher view—that U.S. participation had become a “racist” intrusion in a nonwhite country’s affairs—was shared by other African American leaders, including King. He organized the Poor People’s Campaign, a protest march on Washington, D.C., before he was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, in April 1968. Anger and frustration over his assassination set off more disturbances in the inner cities. (James Earl Ray, a white small-time crook, was tried and convicted of the murder.)

African Americans - Civil Rights, Equality, Activism (2024)

FAQs

How did civil rights activists advance the equality for African Americans? ›

Resistance to racial segregation and discrimination with strategies such as civil disobedience, nonviolent resistance, marches, protests, boycotts, “freedom rides,” and rallies received national attention as newspaper, radio, and television reporters and cameramen documented the struggle to end racial inequality.

Why is black activism still necessary? ›

According to the website, even though the government had passes laws in favor of desegregation, why was "black activism" still necessary? black activism was necessary to compel the federal government to extend its principles to all areas of public life rather than simply in schools.

What was civil rights the African American struggle for equality? ›

The civil rights movement was a struggle for social justice that took place mainly during the 1950s and 1960s for Black Americans to gain equal rights under the law in the United States.

What were African Americans fighting for in the Civil Rights Movement? ›

In the middle of the 20th century, a nationwide movement for equal rights for African Americans and for an end to racial segregation and exclusion arose across the United States.

How did the Civil Rights Act help African Americans? ›

The Act prohibited discrimination in public accommodations and federally funded programs. It also strengthened the enforcement of voting rights and the desegregation of schools. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is the nation's benchmark civil rights legislation, and it continues to resonate in America.

What granted equal rights to African Americans? ›

Passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 marked a milestone in the long struggle to extend civil, political, and legal rights and protections to African Americans, including former slaves and their descendants, and to end segregation in public and private facilities.

Do we still need a civil rights movement? ›

There's very little of the kind of formal bigotry and segregation that we saw in Eyes on the Prize, but there's still a lot of discrimination in our society, unfortunately. The modern civil rights movement is working to address the less visible but very important inequities in our society.

How do civil rights affect U.S. today? ›

Influence on Culture

The Civil Rights Movement has had a heavy and direct influence on American culture since the 1960s. As more African Americans gained political and economic parity with whites, they also gained more visibility as African American culture began to permeate the whole of American culture.

Who has the biggest impact on black history? ›

These leaders have also had a significant impact in shaping the world we live in today.
  • Martin Luther King, Jr. One of the most well-known civil rights leaders, Martin Luther King, Jr. ...
  • Rosa Parks. ...
  • Barack Obama. ...
  • Frederick Douglass. ...
  • oprah Winfrey. ...
  • Harriet Tubman. ...
  • Medgar Evers. ...
  • Jackie Robinson.
Feb 2, 2022

How did the African American struggle for civil rights evolve? ›

Through nonviolent protest, the civil rights movement of the 1950s and '60s broke the pattern of public facilities' being segregated by “race” in the South and achieved the most important breakthrough in equal-rights legislation for African Americans since the Reconstruction period (1865–77).

What are civil rights and equality? ›

What are civil rights? Civil rights are an essential component of democracy. They're guarantees of equal social opportunities and protection under the law, regardless of race, religion, or other characteristics. Examples are the rights to vote, to a fair trial, to government services, and to a public education.

How did Africa influence the civil rights movement? ›

Each victorious rebellion against colonialism in Africa directly influenced the civil rights movement. Each seemed to guarantee the future successes of the civil rights movement. Thus, the collapse of colonialism across the African continent brought together the plight of Africans and African Americans.

How did the Civil Rights Movement fail? ›

The biggest failure of the Civil Rights Movement was in the related areas of poverty and economic discrimination. Despite the laws we got passed, there is still widespread discrimination in employment and housing. Businesses owned by people of color are still denied equal access to markets, financing, and capital.

What are the five civil rights? ›

Our country's Constitution and federal laws contain critical protections that form the foundation of our inclusive society – the right to be free from discrimination, the freedom to worship as we choose, the right to vote for our elected representatives, the protections of due process, the right to privacy.

What are three causes of the Civil Rights Movement? ›

The civil rights movement is a legacy of more than 400 years of American history in which slavery, racism, white supremacy, and discrimination were central to the social, economic, and political development of the United States.

How did the civil rights movement achieve some of its goals of equality? ›

Through nonviolent protest, the civil rights movement of the 1950s and '60s broke the pattern of public facilities' being segregated by “race” in the South and achieved the most important breakthrough in equal-rights legislation for African Americans since the Reconstruction period (1865–77).

How did the civil rights movement aim to improve the lives of both African Americans and all Americans as a whole? ›

It aimed to give African Americans the same citizenship rights that whites took for granted. It was a war waged on many fronts. In the 1960s it achieved impressive judicial and legislative victories against discrimination in public accommodations and voting.

Why did civil rights become even more important to African Americans? ›

Expert-Verified Answer. Civil rights became even more important to African Americans following World War II because Jim Crow laws kept blacks from full participation in American life despite their service during the war.

What role did the Freedom Riders play in the African American civil rights movement? ›

Through their defiance, the Freedom Riders attracted the attention of the Kennedy Administration and as a direct result of their work, the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) issued regulations banning segregation in interstate travel that fall.

Top Articles
Latest Posts
Recommended Articles
Article information

Author: Sen. Ignacio Ratke

Last Updated:

Views: 5831

Rating: 4.6 / 5 (56 voted)

Reviews: 95% of readers found this page helpful

Author information

Name: Sen. Ignacio Ratke

Birthday: 1999-05-27

Address: Apt. 171 8116 Bailey Via, Roberthaven, GA 58289

Phone: +2585395768220

Job: Lead Liaison

Hobby: Lockpicking, LARPing, Lego building, Lapidary, Macrame, Book restoration, Bodybuilding

Introduction: My name is Sen. Ignacio Ratke, I am a adventurous, zealous, outstanding, agreeable, precious, excited, gifted person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.