Civil rights biography
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Martin Luther King Jr.
In Focus: Martin Luther King Jr. Day
In the nearly 40 years that the United States has celebrated Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the national holiday has never coincided with the inauguration of a non-incumbent president. That changes this year.
Martin Luther King Jr. Day is celebrated annually on the third Monday in January to mark the late activist’s birthday. In , the holiday falls on January 20, the same day typically set aside for Inauguration Day every four years. Indeed, January 20 is also when Donald Trump will be sworn in as 47th president.
Bill Clinton and Barack Obama previously took presidential oaths of office on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. However, in both cases, the men were starting their second consecutive terms, much quieter occasions than the transfer of power from one president to the next.
Days after King’s assassination in , a campaign for a holiday in his honor began. U.S. Representative John Conyers Jr. of Michigan first prop
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Jim Crow Laws
During Reconstruction, Black people took on leadership roles like never before. They held public office and sought legislative changes for equality and the right to vote.
In , the 14th Amendment to the Constitution gave Black people equal protection under the law. In , the 15th Amendment granted Black American men the right to vote. Still, many white Americans, especially those in the South, were unhappy that people they’d once enslaved were now on a more-or-less equal playing field.
To marginalize Black people, keep them separate from white people and erase the progress they’d made during Reconstruction, “Jim Crow” laws were established in the South beginning in the late 19th century. Black people couldn’t use the same public facilities as white people, live in many of the same towns or go to the same schools. Interracial marriage was illegal, and most Black people couldn’t vote because they were unable to pass voter literacy tests.
Jim Crow laws weren’t adopted
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Civil rights movement
– U.S. social movement
This article is about the – movement in the United States. For earlier movements in the United States and others elsewhere, see Civil rights movement (disambiguation). For other uses, see Civil rights movements.
The civil rights movement[b] was a social movement in the United States from to which aimed to abolish legalized racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement in the country, which most commonly affected African Americans. The movement had origins in the Reconstruction era in the late 19th century, and modern roots in the s.[1] After years of nonviolent protests and civil disobedience campaigns, the civil rights movement achieved many of its legislative goals in the s, during which it secured new protections in federal law for the civil rights of all Americans.
Following the American Civil War (–), the three Reconstruction Amendments to the U.S. Constitution abolished slavery and granted c