The governments that were involved in the implementation of these laws also authorised for restrictions on voting rights that left the African American population politically, socially and economically powerless. The movement was sought out to mainly address these three areas of discrimination which were social divide, education, and most importantly voting rights. The civil rights movement was conducted due to prejudices that were occurring mainly in the South .It was there, where the African American population .
Experienced atrocious racial inequality in economic opportunity, education and the most blatant in the political and legal arena (Hall, 2005). The 13th amendment in the American Constitution was passed in 1884, the amendment was passed to abolish slavery in the United States of America as was planned by President Abraham Lincoln.(InfoPlease,2014).Even though slavery was abolished, this did not mean that the 'slaves' had equal opportunity. Severe and unjust laws were created to instil segregation especially within the South. These laws limited the civil liberties of the people that were affected by them mainly African-Americans, these laws also enlisted them to be inferior (Hall,2005).
The 1950's saw the advent of the television. With this in mind, this helped the civil rights movement to be the successful movement that it was as the television was one of the main contributors for access of information to show America what was going on within the movement. Furthermore within the 1950s, equal opportunity was not provided. Rigid segregation was the rule throughout the country especially in education and employment. Brown vs Topeka Board of Education in 1954 was seen as a turning point in the political and legal arena. It served as a motivational factor for the movement. King mobilised the African-American community within the movement.
In 1954, the US Supreme Court had a landmark decision that ended racial segregation in public schools.