The Post–Civil Rights era in African-American history is defined as the time period in the United States since Congressional passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and the 1968 Fair Housing Act, major federal legislation that ended legal segregation, gained federal oversight and enforcement of voter registration and electoral practices in states or areas with a history of discriminatory practices, and ended discrimination in renting or buying housing.
Politically and economically, blacks have made substantial strides in the post–civil rights era. Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson ran for the Democratic Partys presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988, attracting more blacks into politics and unprecedented support and leverage for blacks in politics. In 2008 United States Senator Barack Obama (D) from Illinois was elected as the first President of the United States of African descent; Obamas mother was European American and his father Kenyan.
In the same period, African Americans have suffered disproportionate unemployment rates following industrial and corporate restructuring, with a rate of poverty in the 21st century that is equal to that in 1968. A variety of social and judicial discrimination have resulted in African Americans having the highest rates of incarceration of any minority group, especially in the southern states of the former Confederacy.
On January 19, 1970, the nomination of G. Harrold Carswell to the US Supreme Court was defeated by the US Senate. On May 27, 1970, the film Watermelon Man was released, directed by Melvin Van Peebles and starring Godfrey Cambridge. The first blaxploitation films were released.
On April 20, 1971, the Supreme Court, in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, upheld busing of students to achieve integration. In December 1971, Jesse Jackson organized Operation PUSH.
In 1972, Shirley Chisholm became the first major-party African-American candidate for President of the United States and the first woman to run for the Democratic
