BACKGROUND INFORMATION

The civil rights movement has been called the Second Reconstruction, in reference to the Reconstruction imposed upon the South following the Civil War. During this period, the fourteenth amendment (1868)—granting equal protection of the laws—and fifteenth amendment (1870)—giving the right to vote to all males regardless of race—were ratified, and troops from the North occupied the South from 1865 to 1877 to enforce the abolition of slavery. However, with the end of Reconstruction in 1877, southern whites again took control of the South, passing a variety of laws that discriminated on the basis of race. These were called Jim Crow laws, or the black codes. They segregated whites and blacks in education, housing, and the use of public and private facilities such as restaurants, trains, and rest rooms; they also denied blacks the right to vote, to move freely, and to marry whites. Myriad other prejudicial and discriminatory practices were committed as well, from routine denial of the right to a fair trial to outright murder by lynching. These laws and practices were a reality of U.S. life well into the twentieth century.