The Civil Rights Movement in the Early 1960s

When we think of the Civil Rights Movement, we tend to think of the 1960s. The Movement had been growing for decades, and it was in the early 1960s that things really began to happen.

The Freedom Riders risked their lives in 1961 by riding Greyhound buses into the Deep South, where they would be attacked by the Ku Klux Klan.

In August 1963 Dr. Martin Luther King led the March on Washington, an enormous event which brought the Civil Rights Movement to the forefront of the national conversation. And, of course, Dr. King, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, delivered his classic "I Have a Dream" speech.

After the assassination of President Kennedy in November 1963, President Johnson devoted considerable effort to Civil Rights. And the following year was one of struggles and triumphs. Three young Civil Rights workers were murdered in Mississippi in 1964, but the Civil Rights act of 1964 was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Johnson.

The timeline of the Civil Rights Movement in the early 1960s reflects the intensity of the times.

Photograph: The March on Washington, August 28, 1963/Getty Images