June 11, 1963

1954–1968 U.S. social movement

The civil rights movement was a social movement in the United States from 1954 to 1968 which aimed to abolish legalized racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement in the country, which most commonly affected African Americans. The movement had origins in the Reconstruction era in the late 19th century, and modern roots in the 1940s and in Mohandas Gandhi's nonviolent movement in India. After years of nonviolent protests and civil disobedience campaigns, the civil rights movement achieved many of its legislative goals in the 1960s, during which it secured new protections in federal law for the civil rights of all Americans, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Civil Rights Act of 1968.

Vietnamese Buddhist monk (1897–1963)

Thích Quảng Đức was a Vietnamese Mahayana Buddhist monk who died by self-immolation at a busy Saigon road intersection on 11 June 1963. Quảng Đức was protesting the persecution of Buddhists by the South Vietnamese government of Ngô Đình Diệm, a staunch Roman Catholic. Photographs of his self-immolation circulated around the world, drawing attention to the policies of the Diệm government.

President of the United States from 1961 to 1963

John Fitzgerald Kennedy, also known as JFK, was the 35th president of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. He was the youngest person elected president, at 43 years. Kennedy served at the height of the Cold War, and the majority of his foreign policy concerned relations with the Soviet Union and Cuba.