The issue of civil disobedience is as old as Socrates and as modern as Nelson Mandella. It is such an important issue today because the civil rights revolution is an attempt to seek new tactics of social and political reform. At the time of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, it was described as the most significant piece of legislation passed by the United States Congress in the twentieth century. The legislation brought about an almost overnight end to the legal racial segregation of black Americans in the American South. This territory was a place where public segregation of blacks from white Americans was categorized in state laws. Many of those who participated in Congress' enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 understood the doctrine's enormous historical significance. History In 1619 in Jamestown, Virginia, a Dutch ship entered the harbor with twenty African slaves. These slaves were brought from Africa and used to profit the Southern United States. They provided a cheap and reliable source of labor. North America was more of an industrial area and the use of slaves was less useful. During the 1800s the North and South drifted apart on this issue. On January 1, 1863, President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed all slaves in the states that seceded from the Union. After the Civil War, three amendments were made to the Constitution, the 13th, 14th, and 15th. These amendments abolished slavery, gave blacks the right to life, liberty, property, and the right to vote. In the case Plessy v. Ferguson of the Supreme Court the court ruled that blacks are separate but equal. This continued racism spurred the early civil rights movements and the creation of the new National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) organization. In the years that followed, around 1962-1963, the South was the scene of clashes between black protesters and white segregationists. The Civil Rights Act at the Supreme Court Many believe that Martin Luther King Jr. used nonviolent demonstrations to deliberately provoke attacks by violence-prone whites. Southern officials and white mobs. Whether or not King used this strategy, his efforts produced the media coverage he needed. The civil rights movement became one of the largest publicized events in the United States.