History of the Civil Rights Movement

The Civil Rights Movement of the United States began as a challenge to segregation, which was the legal separation of whites and blacks. Segregation began as a method to control blacks because slavery was no longer permitted or accepted in the United States. To challenge this, civil rights activists, such as Martin Luther King Jr., Malcom X, Rosa Parks, and The Little Rock 5, used protest marches, boycotts and refusal to abide by segregation laws. The movement began with the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955 and ended with the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Civil Rights Movement has also been known as the Black Freedom Movement, the Negro Revolution, and the Second Reconstruction.