American Civil Rights Movement (1955-1968)

The Civil Rights Movement in the United States has been a long, primarily nonviolent struggle to bring full civil rights and equality under the law to primarily African American citizens of United States. There have been many movements on behalf of other groups in the U.S. over time, but the term is often used to refer to the struggles between 1955 and 1968 to end discrimination against African-Americans and to end racial segregation, especially in the U.S. South. See African American for information on how various terms have been used at that time period for African Americans.

Memphis and the Poor People's March

Rev. James Lawson invited King to Memphis, Tennessee, in March, 1968, to support a strike by sanitation workers who had launched a campaign for union representation after two workers accidentally were killed on the job. A day after delivering his famous "Mountaintop" sermon at Lawson's church, King was assassinated on April 4, 1968. Riots broke out in over 110 cities across the United States in the days that followed, notably in Chicago, Baltimore, and in Washington, D.C.

Related Topics:
Memphis, Tennessee - Sanitation - Union - April 4 - 1968 - In Washington, D.C.

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Rev. Ralph Abernathy succeeded King as the head of the SCLC and attempted to carry forth King's plan for a Poor People's March, which would have united blacks and whites to campaign for fundamental changes in American society and economic structure. The march went forward under Abernathy's plainspoken leadership, but is widely regarded as a failure.

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