Civil Rights Memorial: Meaning (information, definition, explanation, facts)

The Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama is a memorial to 40 people who died in the struggle for equal and integrated treatment of people of European and African descent. The memorial is sponsored by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The names included belong to those who died between 1954 and 1968. Those dates were chosen because in 1954 the US Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation in schools was unlawful. 1968 is the year of Martin Luther King's assassination. The monument was created by Maya Lin who also created the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC. The memorial was dedicated in 1989.

Also see racism and US civil rights movement