The Civil Rights Movement in the US

In 1963, only a small minority of Americans thought civil rights was the country's most pressing issue. In just two and a half months during the first half of the year, there were over 750 demonstrations in almost 200 cities. Hundreds of thousands of people made their way to Washington, D.C. in August 1963. The event opened with the announcement that the great black intellectual and activist W.E.B. Du Bois had died the previous night in Ghana.