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lynchings and murders in Mississippi and Florida, and the Supreme Court's 1954 decision outlawing segregation in American public schools.

The court decision outlawed segregation's legality; a nonviolent army soon arose to challenge its morality as well.

The movement was successful in abolishing America's legal apartheid; it failed however, to dent a deeper system which then and now relegates blacks to subordinate and marginal roles.

Yesterday's movement for civil rights - like yesterday's war in Vietnam - showed Americans at our best and worst.

At our best we were and are a caring people, heroic and brave. At our worst we were and are a narrow and selfish people, devoted to skin privilege and economic advantage for only a few. But here at home, in the American South, a decade-long struggle against great odds won real victories, not just for Southern blacks, but for American ideals as well.

Drawing on the inspiration of Montgomety, black college students in 1960 began a movement by sitting down to stand up for