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Learn The Civil Rights Movement

The people, strategies and laws that ended legal segregation in the US.

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The civil rights movement was the struggle, peaking from the mid 1950s to the late 1960s, to end legal segregation and voting discrimination against Black Americans. It was built by ordinary people and organizations such as the NAACP, SCLC, SNCC and CORE, using lawsuits, boycotts, sit-ins, marches and voter registration drives. Its milestones include Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, the Montgomery bus boycott, the 1963 March on Washington, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Learnr turns this history into short lessons on the events, people and tactics, with primary sources at the center.

How to learn The Civil Rights Movement, step by step

Understand what the movement was fighting. Learn how Jim Crow laws, poll taxes, literacy tests and racial violence worked in the South after Reconstruction, and how segregation also took other forms in the North. The goals and tactics only make sense against that system.
Follow the legal road to Brown. Study how the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, led by Thurgood Marshall, chipped away at Plessy v. Ferguson's separate but equal rule before the Supreme Court struck down school segregation in 1954, and how massive resistance and Little Rock in 1957 followed.
Study the campaigns as strategy. For Montgomery in 1955, the Greensboro sit-ins in 1960, the Freedom Rides in 1961 and Birmingham in 1963, ask who organized each, what pressure it created, and how opponents and the federal government responded.
Read the movement in its own words. Read Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter from Birmingham Jail, Fannie Lou Hamer's 1964 testimony to the Democratic convention's credentials committee, and speeches by Malcolm X. Comparing them shows real debates inside the movement about tactics and goals.
Connect protest to law. Trace how Birmingham and the March on Washington led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and how the violence at Selma's Edmund Pettus Bridge in 1965 led to the Voting Rights Act. Then look at the Fair Housing Act of 1968.
Look beyond the famous faces. Give time to grassroots organizers, women leaders and young SNCC activists who did much of the daily work. Learnr lessons can mix these stories with quick recall questions so the full cast of people sticks, not just one or two names.

What you'll learn

Explain Jim Crow segregation and the legal strategy that led to Brown v. Board of Education
Describe key campaigns, from Montgomery and the sit-ins to Birmingham and Selma
Identify the roles of leaders and organizers such as Martin Luther King Jr., Ella Baker, Fannie Lou Hamer and John Lewis
Explain what the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 did
Compare nonviolent direct action with the Black Power movement and other approaches

What's inside your The Civil Rights Movement course

A sample path Learnr builds for The Civil Rights Movement. Your real course adapts to your goal and level.

1. Jim Crow, the Great Migration and early legal challenges
2. Brown v. Board and the Montgomery bus boycott
3. Sit-ins, Freedom Rides and student organizing
4. Birmingham, the March on Washington and the Civil Rights Act
5. Freedom Summer, Selma and the Voting Rights Act
6. Black Power, urban struggles and the movement's legacy

How long does it take to learn The Civil Rights Movement?

You can understand the main events and laws in about 3 to 5 weeks at 2 to 3 hours a week. Reading primary sources and longer histories, or extending into the earlier and later freedom struggles, can easily fill a few months.

What you need before you start

No background needed, though a basic grasp of US government, the Constitution and the Civil War and Reconstruction makes the legal and political story clearer.

Common mistakes to avoid

Reducing the movement to Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks. Learn the organizations, local activists and young people who powered it.
Treating Rosa Parks as simply a tired seamstress. She was an experienced NAACP activist, and the boycott was carefully organized.
Ending the story in 1965. Follow the later fights over housing, jobs, Black Power and northern segregation to understand what came next.

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The Civil Rights Movement questions, answered

When was the civil rights movement?

The best-known phase ran from about 1954, the year of Brown v. Board of Education, to 1968, when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated and the Fair Housing Act passed. Many historians describe a longer movement stretching back decades earlier.

What did the Civil Rights Act of 1964 do?

It banned discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin in public accommodations and employment, and it gave the federal government tools to enforce school desegregation.

What is the difference between the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act?

The 1964 act targeted segregation and discrimination in public places and jobs. The 1965 Voting Rights Act banned literacy tests and similar barriers to voting and placed federal oversight on areas with a history of discrimination.