The Civil Rights Act of 1960 strengthened the provisions of the 1957 act for court enforcement of voting rights and required preservation of voting records. But in the 1950s and 1960s, a change came.US Supreme Court cases from the Cases from 1940-1955 term. FindLaw provides an overview of some of the notable U.S. Supreme Court cases that have affected civil rights law in the United States through the years. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 hastened the end of legal Jim Crow. Author and Professor Christopher Schmidt reviews the history of critical Supreme Court civil rights and equality cases that everyone should know. The civil rights movement was a struggle for justice and equality for African Americans that took place mainly in the 1950s and 1960s. Testing the Supreme Court's ruling on the case Boynton v. Below is a list of Supreme Court cases involving First Amendment rights related to the Civil Rights Movement. This historic federal legislation prohibited discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, and national origin.