The basic strategic orientation of the modern civil rights movement was civil resistance and nonviolent protest. The movement actually started in the early 1900s, in particular the National Association for the advancement of colored people (NAACP) was founded in 1909. Throughout the following decades there were some race riots, however, most struggles for equal rights were carried out through lobbying Congress and in the courts. There were several important court cases. In particular, Brown versus the Board of Education that went to the US Supreme Court in 1954 ruled that having separate schools for whites and blacks was unconstitutional. This ruling overturned the previous policy and established that “separate but equal” is inherently unequal.
