African-American Leaders in the Civil Rights Era

Although "Menagerie, a Child's Fable" was first published in 1984, its setting evokes the era of social and political turmoil in the United States of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, known as the Civil Rights Era. The Civil Rights Era was characterized by massive efforts on the part of the Civil Rights Movement to gain greater social equality for African-American citizens in the United States.

Beginning in the 1950s, the Civil Rights Movement focused on efforts at desegregation of public schools and other public institutions, particularly in the American South. In addition, the Civil Rights Movement worked toward the enforcement of equal voting rights for African Americans in the South, where local authorities often went to great lengths to prevent blacks from voting in political elections. Passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was one of the greatest achievements of the Civil...