The civil rights movement (CRM) stands for the political movement led mostly by African Americans in the United States throughout the 1950s and until the early 1970s to achieve an egalitarian position in their social, political, and economic life. This political movement aimed at improved living conditions for African Americans; the elimination of racial segregation; equal civil rights vis-à-vis those of white American citizens; equal opportunity in economic life, health, employment, housing, and education; equal conditions regarding electoral politics; and the abolition of a variety of impediments and discrimination based on race. This movement is also known as the American civil rights movement, or the African American civil rights movement.

The CRM had its roots in the American history of slavery. Although American politics witnessed the ...