This encyclopedia article gives an interesting account of the Freedom Rides of 1961, which sparked later civil rights movements.

In the early 1960s civil rights activists put the ban on segregation to the test. In 1961, "Freedom riders," boarded buses headed south to test the federal ban on segregated travel. And in 1962, the University of Mississippi was ordered...

Brief biographical details on Eugene "Bull" Connor, Commissioner of Public Safety in Birmingham, AL in 1961. He was an ultra-segregationist with close ties to the KKK known for enforcing racial segregation and denying civil rights to...