Civil rights movement

=== Memphis, King assassination, and Civil Rights Act of 1968 ===
{{Main|Poor People's Campaign|Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.|Civil Rights Act of 1968}}
{{See also|King assassination riots|Orangeburg massacre}}
[[File:Resurrection City Washington D.C. 1968.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|A 3,000-person shantytown called [[Poor People's Campaign#Resurrection City|Resurrection City]] was established in 1968 on the [[National Mall]] as part of the Poor People's Campaign.]]

As 1968 began, the fair housing bill was being [[filibustered]] once again, but two developments revived it.<ref name="propublica.org" /> The [[Kerner Commission]] report on the [[Long hot summer of 1967|1967 ghetto riots]] was delivered to Congress on March 1, and it strongly recommended "a comprehensive and enforceable federal open housing law" as a remedy to the civil disturbances. The Senate was moved to end their filibuster that week.<ref name="huduser.org">{{Cite web|url=http://www.huduser.org/portal/Periodicals/CITYSCPE/VOL4NUM3/mathias.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141227020632/http://www.huduser.org/portal/Periodicals/CITYSCPE/VOL4NUM3/mathias.pdf |archive-date=2014-12-27 |url-status=live|title=Honorable Charles Mathias Jr. "Fair Housing Legislation: Not an Easy Row To Hoe" US Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Policy Development and Research}}</ref>

[[James Lawson (American activist)|James Lawson]] invited King to [[Memphis, Tennessee]], in March 1968 to support a [[Memphis sanitation strike|sanitation workers' strike]]. These workers launched a campaign for [[trade union|union]] representation after two workers were accidentally killed on the job; they were seeking fair wages and improved working conditions. King considered their struggle to be a vital part of the [[Poor People's Campaign]] he was planning.

{{listen
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| description=Final 30 seconds of "[[I've Been to the Mountaintop]]" speech by [[Martin Luther King Jr.]] These are the final words from his final public speech.
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A day after delivering his stirring "[[I've Been to the Mountaintop]]" sermon, which has become famous for his vision of American society, King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, at the [[Lorraine Motel]] in Memphis. [[King assassination riots|Riots broke out]] in black neighborhoods in more than 110 cities across the United States in the days that followed, notably [[1968 Chicago riots|in Chicago]], [[Baltimore riot of 1968|Baltimore]], and [[1968 Washington, D.C., riots|Washington, D.C.]]

The day before [[Funeral of Martin Luther King Jr.|King's funeral]], April 8, a completely silent march with [[Coretta Scott King]], [[Southern Christian Leadership Conference|SCLC]], and UAW president [[Walter Reuther]] attracted approximately 42,000 participants.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Memphis, Tennessee, sanitation workers strike, 1968 {{!}} Global Nonviolent Action Database|url=https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/memphis-tennessee-sanitation-workers-strike-1968|website=nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu|access-date=May 19, 2020}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=Reuther, Walter Philip|url=https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/reuther-walter-philip|last1=University|first1= Stanford|last2=Stanford|date=June 21, 2017|website=The Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute|language=en|access-date=May 19, 2020|last3=California 94305}}</ref> Armed National Guardsmen lined the streets, sitting on [[M-48 tanks]], to protect the marchers, and helicopters circled overhead. On April 9, Mrs. King led another 150,000 people in a funeral procession through the streets of Atlanta.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAcoretta.htm |title=Coretta Scott King |publisher=Spartacus Educational Publishers |access-date=October 30, 2010  |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100705051610/http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAcoretta.htm |archive-date=July 5, 2010 }}</ref> Her dignity revived courage and hope in many of the Movement's members, confirming her place as the new leader in the struggle for racial equality.

Coretta Scott King said,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Gregg |first1=Khyree |title=A Concise Chronicle History of the African-American People Experience in America |publisher=Henry Epps |page=284}}</ref>

{{blockquote|quote=[[Martin Luther King Jr.]] gave his life for the poor of the world, the garbage workers of Memphis and the peasants of Vietnam. The day that Negro people and others in bondage are truly free, on the day want is abolished, on the day wars are no more, on that day I know my husband will rest in a long-deserved peace.}}

[[File:Leffler - 1968 Washington, D.C. Martin Luther King, Jr. riots.jpg|thumb|Aftermath of the [[King assassination riots]] in Washington, D.C.]]

[[Ralph Abernathy]] succeeded King as the head of the SCLC and attempted to carry forth King's plan for a Poor People's March. It was to unite blacks and whites to campaign for fundamental changes in American society and economic structure. The march went forward under Abernathy's plainspoken leadership but did not achieve its goals.

==== Civil Rights Act of 1968 ====
The [[United States House of Representatives|U.S. House of Representatives]] had been deliberating its Fair Housing Act in early April, before King's assassination and the aforementioned [[King assassination riots|wave of unrest]] that followed, the largest since the Civil War.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.temple.edu/tempress/chapters_1800/2148_ch1.pdf |title=Peter B. Levy, "The Dream Deferred: The Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., and the Holy Week Uprisings of 1968" in ''Baltimore '68: Riots and Rebirth in an American city'' (Temple University Press, 2011), p. 6 |access-date=December 29, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924123559/http://www.temple.edu/tempress/chapters_1800/2148_ch1.pdf |archive-date=September 24, 2015}}</ref> Senator [[Charles Mathias]] wrote:

{{blockquote|quote=[S]ome Senators and Representatives publicly stated they would not be intimidated or rushed into legislating because of the disturbances. Nevertheless, the news coverage of the riots and the underlying disparities in income, jobs, housing, and education, between White and Black Americans helped educate citizens and Congress about the stark reality of an enormous social problem. Members of Congress knew they had to act to redress these imbalances in American life to fulfill the dream that King had so eloquently preached.<ref name="huduser.org" />}}

The House passed the legislation on April 10, less than a week after King was murdered, and President Johnson signed it the next day. The [[Civil Rights Act of 1968]] prohibited discrimination concerning the sale, rental, and financing of housing based on race, religion, and national origin. It also made it a federal crime to "by force or by the threat of force, injure, intimidate, or interfere with anyone...by reason of their race, color, religion, or national origin."<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/STATUTE-82/pdf/STATUTE-82-Pg73.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140716002812/http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/STATUTE-82/pdf/STATUTE-82-Pg73.pdf |archive-date=2014-07-16 |url-status=live|title=Public Law 90-284, Government Printing Office}}</ref>