Changes

Though much of the discourse around civil rights is rightly linked to the 1960s, the history of civil rights has a much longer and complicated history. The legislative history of civil rights reveals the ways in which citizenship was broadened to not only include peoples who were of African descent, but also all who would be identified as citizens. Civil rights legislation, in other words, was grounded in the desire of fairness, justice, and equity. But it was not a straight road.