Free course

The American Civil Rights Movement

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In this free course, The American Civil Rights Movement, you will learn about the mass movement for racial equality in the United States that reached its zenith during the 1950s and 1960s. During this turbulent period in United States history, black Americans sought to overturn deeply entrenched systems of racial segregation and discrimination. This course discusses the key events in this campaign for social justice, drawing on a wide range of primary sources. In doing so, it assesses the achievements, shortcomings and revolutionary qualities of the civil rights movement.

Use of racial language and terms

This course deals with topics involving racial issues. Since the societies being studied were characterised by deeply-held and widespread racist views, this course contains language that is also racist. Although these may provoke a strong personal response, we believe it is necessary to engage with such attitudes to reach a clear understanding of the past.

This OpenLearn course is an adapted extract from the Open University course A113 Revolutionsand is part of a set of four OpenLearn courses, covering Revolutions of the Sixties.

Transcript

Course learning outcomes

After studying this course, you should be able to:

understand some of the key events in the history of the civil rights movement
understand the movement's achievements and shortcomings
assess how 'revolutionary' the civil rights movement was
interpret a range of relevant primary sources, including interviews, speeches and letters.

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First Published: 29/09/2020

Updated: 07/09/2021

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Average rating 4.7 out of 5, based on 22 ratings.

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Course reviews

Marion Steer 14 November 2025 3:08PM

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The course was both informative and well put together. I didn't know much about American Civil Rights, or exactly how important Martin Luther King's input was with regard to desegregation and equality of rights. I was saddened by the premature death of John F Kennedy, who worked so hard and promised legislative action. The American people went to such great lengths to surppress black people using so much violence and murder. It is a very interesting subject.

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Henry Witton 3 March 2025 11:55AM

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I decided to do this course because I found it to be both interesting and factual. There were loads of things that I saw which I thought was helpful to me about what went on during the American Civil Rights movement and what happened when over the course of many, many, many years, people fought for their rights to all be treated equally and as the same as others like them.

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The American Civil Rights Movement

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