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Civil Rights Movement, Laws & Legislation

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Civil Rights Movement

The Civil Rights Movement was a struggle to fulfill the promise, made in the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, of full citizenship and equal opportunity for Black and African Americans. The movement was mostly nonviolent and resulted in laws to protect every American’s constitutional rights, regardless of color, race, sex, disability, or national origin.

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Civil Rights Laws

  • Americans with Disabilities Act: to establish a clear and comprehensive prohibition of discrimination on the basis of disability.
  • Civil Rights Act of 1957: to provide means of further securing and protecting the civil rights of persons within the jurisdiction of the United States. 
  • Civil Rights Act of 1960: to enforce constitutional rights, and for other purposes.
  • Civil Rights Act of 1964: to enforce the constitutional right to vote, to confer jurisdiction upon the district courts of the United States to provide injunctive relief against discrimination in public accommodations, to authorize the Attorney General to institute suits to protect constitutional rights in public facilities and public education, to extend the Commission on Civil Rights, to prevent discrimination in federally assisted programs, to establish a Commission on Equal Employment Opportunity, and for other purposes.
  • Civil Rights Act of 1968 (Fair Housing Act): to prescribe penalties for certain acts of violence or intimidation, and for other purposes.
  • Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972: to amend the Higher Education Act of 1965, the Vocational Education Act of 1963, the General Education Provisions Act (creating a National Foundation for Postsecondary Education and a National Institute of Education), the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, Public Law 874, Eighty-first Congress, and related Acts, and for other purposes.
  • Voting Rights Act of 1965: to enforce the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and for other purposes.

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