Direct action At the same time, other black leaders and groups were taking more direct action. In 1961, the Freedom Riders boarded inter-state busses to force the American government to desegregate bus station waiting rooms and toilets. Two years later, others began the ‘lunch-counter protests’, where blacks sat at white- only lunch counters in restaurants. Thousands of these sit-in protests occurred across the southern states of the USA.
Civil Rights Act Martin Luther King’s campaign and the other actions resulted in President Johnson signing the Civil Rights Act 1964, which outlawed discrimination based on race, colour, religion, sex, or national origin. In 1965, Johnson also signed the Voting Rights Act, which banned efforts to discriminate against blacks through voting regulations. As a result of the Voting Rights Act, black voting registration increased from 35% of blacks in 1963 to 65% of blacks in 1969.
PROFILE – MARTIN LUTHER KING
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In 1968, Martin Luther King was assassinated by a white gunman. This resulted in riots in many US cities, where 50 people were killed and 20,000 arrested. However, the laws he had won resulted in more black politicians being elected and black mayors representing major American cities. Then Barack Obama became the first black American to be elected President in 2009. During this time also, more blacks went to college and entered well-paid jobs. But there were still black ghettos with many poor and unemployed black people.
