The American Civil Rights Movement has been at the forefront of discussion regarding socio-economic progress achieved by various minority groups (including women) in the United States. Without question the movement was the pinnacle point that drove home to millions of Americans the inhumane, immoral and despicable treatment that many African American citizens were receiving in much of the southern United States. Likewise, it (the movement) was the single highlight that marked the ultimate change in the way America viewed its black citizens. Once thought to be generally laborers and second class citizens unfit for white collar employment, the African American of the civil rights era disproved this and many other false stereotypes of the time.