American Civil Rights Movement by Eric Eckhart The American Civil Rights Movement was a movement in which African Americans were once slaves and fought through nonviolent means for many generations such as protests, sit-in ins, boycotts and many other forms of civil disobedience to receive the same rights as whites in society. The American civil rights movement has never had a start or end date in history. However, these African American citizens had extraordinary courage and never stopped, until these unjust laws were changed and they received what they had always fought for, their inalienable rights as human beings and to be equal to everyone else human beings. To this day there are still racial issues where some people feel superior than others because of race. This, however, is a problem that may never end. African Americans fought until Jim Crow laws were abolished and achieved equality for all people regardless of race. Along the way there were many controversial court cases and important leaders who helped take a stand against racial segregation. What was the American civil rights movement? Massive protests against segregation and racial discrimination erupted in the American South that attracted national attention during the mid-1950s. This movement began with centuries-old attempts by African slaves to resist slavery. After the Civil War, American slaves were granted basic civil rights. However, although these rights were guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment, they were not enforced at the federal level. The struggle that these African-Americans had to go through to have their rights... in the middle of paper... or for blacks in the South to vote. In 1967 the Supreme Court declared interracial marriage legal. In 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed at the age of thirty-nine. The Civil Rights Act of 1968 also passed, ending discrimination in the sale, rental and financing of housing. In 1988, President Reagan's veto was overridden by Congress, which passed the Civil Rights Restoration Act, which expanded the scope of nondiscrimination laws within private institutions that received federal funds. In 1991 President Bush. Signs the Civil Rights Act of 1991, strengthening existing civil rights laws. In 2008, President Obama was elected the first African-American president. The American civil rights movement had a huge effect on our history and what our country is like today. Without it things would be very different. Ultimately, though, we are all human beings, regardless of our differences.