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The civil rights movement often refers to the present-day American Civil Rights Movement to end Jim Crow segregation and extend full voting rights to African-Americans in the US Deep South. In fact, however, there is no single such movement. Throughout history and around the globe, individuals and a broad range of interest groups have struggled, and continue to strive, to obtain for marginalized and disenfranchised people rights and protections consonant with those in existence for other, more assimilated or accepted members of their respective societies. Within the US, organizations such as ACORN, National Council of La Raza and the NAACP continue the struggle for civil rights. The Civil Rights Movement has also been called the Black Freedom Movement, the Negro Revolution, the Second Reconstruction, and the Black Revolution.

In New York City in June of 1969, in what is now known as the Stonewall Riots, large groups of homosexual men revolted and rioted against government and police tyranny and hypocrisy. This marked the beginning of the gay and lesbian human rights movement, which continues to this day in spite of opposition from both conservative politicans and some religious groups. Nevertheless, the movement has important social relevance in the United States and cannot be ignored, regardless of what personal or public opinion might be.

See also: African American, civil right, civil rights history, human rights, Stonewall Riots, gay rights.

• Social justice