Civil Rights Movement

     The year is 1954, nearly hundred years after all slaves were freed, but this unfortunately didn't mean they were treated equal. Jim Crow laws made it possible to separate people by race. On the court case, Brown vs the Board of Education, made the Supreme Court rule that segregation is unconstitutional. That however, only angered the while people. In 1955, a an African American women was asked to move from her seat so that a white people could take her spot, when she refused, she was arrested. Rosa Park's arrest lead to the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which lasted for 381 days. The leader of the civil right movement was Martin Luther King Jr.; he lead the movement with nonviolent protests. With his leadership, it gave the strength to many African Americans to stand up for themselves. In 1960, four college freshmen started a sit-in to end the segregation on lunch counters. King made a famous speech, where he talked about having a dream where his family and him wouldn't have to live in fear anymore. Little by little, African Americans got the rights they deserved. Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1965 and the Voting Rights Act of 1966, which outlawed both discrimination based on race and unfair voting test. 
http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/civil-rights-movement

Jim Crow

    Even after the liberation of slaves, blacks were still treated as less than equal.Voting was a big issue in this time period. There was literary test and the grandfather clause to stop blacks from voting. The literary test prevented blacks from voting because many didn't know how to read. The grandfather clause stated that if your grandfather was a slave, then you couldn't vote.  There was Jim Crow laws created to stop blacks from living a normal life. Blacks and whites weren't able to be together in anyway; they couldn't sit together not be seen together. If a black man shake hands with a white male, it would be seen as bad because it states that they are equal. Whites were always right; blacks would just have to believe in the white folks words.

http://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/what.htm