Civil rights are intended to protect individuals. They are embodied rights in civil law and affect a person’s liberty and freedom from discrimination giving them equality in opportunity and outcome. While every generation will see its own civil rights struggle, it is important to differentiate the term “Civil Rights” from “Civil Rights Movement of the United States of America.” The latter refers directly to the period in the mid-20th century when black Americans fought to attain equal rights. Wherein “civil rights” is the all-encompassing term that applies to a set of Civil Liberties.
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The astounding number of references made to the Black’s Civil Rights Movement in 1960s makes it the most important of all. It claimed lives, even the lives of whites who tried registering African American vote. There was an absolutely constant drumbeat of lawless violence against African Americans from the Civil War into the 1970’s, which still has echoes today. The Civil War became a triggering point in the natural discourse of American History. No one alive today had anything to do with slavery and most have never done anything racist or would today. It is due to the same movement that civil rights activism has now become institutionalized and societal attitudes have changed. People don’t have to march in the streets for civil rights, there’s an entire permanent bureaucracy in the federal government. Equal rights afforded to every citizen. And any later campaigns in fact are inspired from this movement.
Even today, Trump might also keep Voting Rights Act of 1965 as hamstrung by the Supreme Court despite its effect on US democracy, which still seems to be counter to the Fifteenth Amendment. Possibly Trump will try to undermine or even repeal the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, which would be a disaster for millions of Americans. Maintaining and expanding the war on Drugs which results in huge numbers of Black men serving long sentences in prison the current version of slavery and an affront to civil rights American per capita imprisonment rates are the highest in the world. But thanks to the Civil Rights Movement in the 60’s, the US state will always have to fight for justice for all, everywhere.