An act of protest, such as when people get together as a group and refuse to buy from or deal with a store or company.

This law ended segregation in public places, including restaurants, movie theaters, and hotels. The law also said that employers could not unfairly discriminate against people because of their race, national origin, religion, or gender.

The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution passed after the Civil War. These amendments were intended to give former slaves the rights of citizens.

The part of the Fourteenth Amendment that has been used to prevent states from being unfair to citizens because of their race or gender. It prohibits laws that unreasonably and unfairly favor some groups over others.

Treating all individuals or groups of people equally under the law, unless there is a good and fair reason for not doing so.

To separate people in schools and other public places according to such things as their race.

The act passed in 1965 that further protected the right to vote for all U.S. citizens. It forced the states to obey the Constitution. It made it clear that the right to vote could not be denied because of a person's color or race.

Justice of the Supreme Court, appointed in 1967 by President Johnson. Great-grandson of slaves, he became involved in the civil rights movement. As counsel for the NAACP, he successfully pleaded the case of Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. First African American to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Rosa Parks first came to national prominence as a civil rights activist when, on December 1, 1955, she refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama, city bus to a white man. Her refusal to get up led to her arrest. On the day of her conviction, December 5, 1955, leaflets were spread across Montgomery urging African-Americans to stay off the buses. At enormous personal sacrifice, African Americans maintained the bus boycott for a total of 381 days, severely damaging the bus company's finances. Ultimately, bus segregation of the sort practiced in Montgomery was ruled unconstitutional by a federal court and Montgomery rescinded its racist law.

Civil rights activist Medgar Evers was the first state field secretary of the NAACP in Mississippi. As such, he organized voter-registration efforts and economic boycotts, and investigated crimes perpetrated against blacks. Evers was assassinated outside of his Mississippi home in 1963.

Religious leader and social reformer. Major leader of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, he was an advocate of nonviolence. Formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957 and became its president. Won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. Assassinated in 1968.