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| Civil Rights Movement |
a movement in the United States particularly prominent during the 1950s and 1960s that sought to end racial discrimination, legal segregation of blacks and whites, and racial barriers to voting. The movement was led by black leaders such as Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King, Jr., John Lewis, and James Farmer. It mobilized tens of thousands of African Americans in protest against existing laws and practices. Activists, both black and white, endured harassment and violence from the police and others as the movement progressed. Eventually, the American civil rights movement brought about the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and other measures. [1/2 definitions] |
| John Lewis |
American civil rights activist and U.S. Congress member from Georgia, who led, among other marches and demonstrations, the march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama in 1965, which galvanized the nation and quickened the passage of the Voting Rights Act (b. 1940--d. 2020). |
| Lyndon Baines Johnson |
U.S. politician, Vice-President to President John F. Kennedy, and later the 36th President of the United States, serving from 1963 to 1969. Under Lyndon Johnson, the nation saw the escalation of the Vietnam War. As president, Lyndon Johnson worked for the passage of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act (b.1908--d.1973). |
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