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their rights.

The next year they attached segregated interstate travel with their bodies and segregated ballott boves across the South.

This movement of ordinary women and men produced a body of law - the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts - which elevated blacks to the full rights of citizenship already enjoyed by other Americans.

Yesterday's movement has frequently been criticized - in the perfect hindsight of today - for winning gains for middle class blacks alone, but middle class blacks in Montgomery, were not the main customers of the city's bus line; black college professors and bankers in Greensboro did not eat their lunch at the 5 & 10.

Rather, the movement provided passage for significant numbers of blacks from lower to middle class status, as expanded opportunities in education and strict enforcement of anti-discrimination laws leveled the playing field, removing artificial racial barriers that had relegated most blacks to jobs and income below their capacity.