Equal rights for African Americans was still a major issue, especially since the "separate but equal" segregation laws were still in effect. After Thurgood Marshall argued that segregation was not legal in Brown versus the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas case, the Supreme Court ruled that segregation in public schools was unconstitutional in 1954. Other African Americans fought against segregation, including Rosa Parks who was arrested for sitting in the white section of a bus, and Martin Luther King, Jr., who organized many boycotts and protests.

During the 1960s, both blacks and whites took part in the civil rights movement to end segregation in the South. Many activists participated in sit-ins, Freedom Rides, boycotts, protest marches, and campaigns to register African American voters. In June 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr., led a civil rights march on Washington. In 1964, President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, making segregation illegal in public places. After a march protesting unfair voting practices in Alabama turned violent, the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965.