CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

( in the US ) the national campaign by African Americans for equal rights, especially in the 1950s and 1960s. The campaign included boycotts (= refusals to buy particular products), the actions of freedom riders , and in 1963 a march to Washington led by Martin Luther King . It succeeded in causing the introduction of affirmative action . The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were also introduced as a result of the civil rights movement, which has helped to change the attitudes of many white Americans.