RIGHTS-b

After the //Brown v. Board of Education// ruling, protests and ecouraged African Americans challenged other forms of segregation.

organization, Jo Ann Robinson called on African Americans to boycott Mongomery's buses on the day Rosa Parks appeared in court. African Americans in large numbers organized protests, defying laws that required segregation, and demanding to be treated equal to whites.
 * Montgomery Bus Boycott:** Outraged by Rosa Park"s arrest, head of local

success. On the day Rosa Parks appeared in court, several civil rights leaders elected a 26-year-old pastor named Martin Luther King Jr. to lead them on. King believed that the only way to end segregation and racism was through nonviolent passive resistence.
 * Martin Luther King Jr. :** The montomery bus boycott became a huge

in the spring of 1963 in Birmingham, knowing they would provoke a violent response. He believed it was the only way to get President Kennedy to support civil rights. Eight days after the protests began, King was arrested. While he was in jail he began to write letters where he said that even though protesters were breaking the law, they were following higher moral law based on divine justice.
 * Birmingham, Alabama:** Martin Luther King Jr. launched demonstrations

After King was released, the protests began to grow again. Public Safety Commissioner Bull Connor ordered the Birmingham police to use clubs, police dogs, and high-pressure fire hoses on the demonstrators. Millions of Americans all over the country watched the graphic violence on the nightly news on television. Worried that the government was losing control, Kennedy oredered to prepare a new civil rights bill.

King realized that Kennedy would have a diffcult time pushing his civil rights bill thorugh Congress. So he figured out a way to build more public support. On August 28, 1963, more than 200,000 demontrators of all races marched to the nation's capital. This is where Martin Luther King delivered his famous speech, "I Have A Dream". King's speech and the peaefulness of the March on Washington built momentum for the civil rights bill. When Kennedy was assasinated in Texas, his vice president, Lyndon B. Johnson became president. On July 2, 1964, President Johnson signed the Cicil Rights Act of 1964 into law. This law made segregation illegal and it gave all citizens of all races and nationalities equal access to public facilities.
 * Civil Rights Act of 1964:** Kennedy was determined to introduce a civil rights bill.