During the civil rights movement ‘African Americans’ in the mid-1950’s to the late 1960’s wanted to win equal rights as the whites. Blacks were fighting for the rights of employment, housing, the right to vote and the right to have an education. The purpose of the civil rights movement was to restore the rights of African Americans and guaranteed citizenship by the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments that have been destroyed by ‘segregationist’ Jim Crow laws in the south. The federal government was forced on many occasions to enforce its laws and to protect the rights of African Americans .

At the ending of reconstruction in 1877 southern whites took over the south. They passed a variety of local laws that discriminated on the basis of race. These were known as the ‘Jim Crow laws’ and/or the black codes.    http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/civil-rights-movement

Martin Luther King Jr (MLK) played a large part in the ‘Civil rights movement‘.  He was the worlds best known advocate of non-violent social change strategies. White terrorists started to bomb MLK’s home as an act to attempt to force Martin to give up his fight for equal rights, but he refused to surrender and continued to fight for the freedom and the rights of the black community. Other activists like Malcolm X wanted the same goals of justice for blacks but due to the violence against them they did not see full equality in such a clear vision.  Malcolm X famously said ” We can only be nonviolent with those who have been nonviolent with us!”  Below is a rare occaision where the two men met each other to discuss the civil Rights movement in March of 1964.

http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/march-on-washington

In the 1960’s Martin Luther King organized a large protest march in Washington D.C in front of thousands of Americans with the support of blacks and whites. The march on Washington in August of 1963 supported MLK and his dreams on making the United States equal for every man, woman and child. More than 200,000 Americans gathered at the Lincoln memorial to support rights for jobs and freedom. MLK was born on January 15th 1929,in Atlanta Georgia. Martin Luther King jr was assassinated on April 4th 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee at the age of 39 by the hands of ‘James Earl Ray’. A fugitive from Missouri state Penitentiary whom was arrested on June 8th, 1968.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King_Jr.