Civil rights history

The Civil Rights Movement in the United States has been a long uneven struggle against high odds, to bring full civil rights to all Americans. It has been made up of many movements, only loosely allied in the best of times, and sometimes ignorant of, or even hostile to, each other.

The following figures, among many others will play a role in how this entry developed.

• Martin Luther King Jr.
• Rosa Parks
• Lyndon Johnson
• Malcolm X

Topics to be discussed

• Historical background to how the blacks in the US became second class citizens in many states.
• Differences in how people in the northern and southern US states viewed these issues.
• Political responses to the issues.
• Religious responses from conservative Christians, liberal Christians, the Catholic Church, Unitarian Universalism, and Judaism.
• Imporant legislation passed during this era.
• Results of the civil rights struggle.

The best-known part of the movement has been the struggle to obtain full rights by African-Americans. But the struggles for equality for women, the disabled and others, including homosexuals and bisexuals, have been part of the movement too.

Civil rights struggles in other parts of the world

• Apartheid in South Africa
• Communism in the Soviet Union as relating to freedoms of religion, speech, press, etc.
• rights of women and non-muslims in countries dominated by Islam