We all have been or heard about unfair treatment of different people based on their skin color, sexuality, gender, or political views. However, all of these situations would have been more or less avoided if you had known your civil rights.

However, civil rights are quite a broad term that some of us might understand differently, which is why it is important to state what they are exactly. Read on and find out more about our civil rights!

What are Civil Rights, Exactly?

Civil rights are a set of rights created in order to protect us from unfair treatment and ensure that fair one will be received by us in a number of different situations and settings, such as education, housing, employment, public accommodations, and so on.

And although originally the term ‘Civil Rights Movement’ was created by African Americans that wanted to receive the same treatment within the US society as all other people, today ‘civil rights’ is a term applied to every US citizen no matter his or her gender, sexuality, race and other characteristics.

What is more, you should not confuse civil rights with civil liberties. The first term is used to denote the general rights of a person that ensure fair treatment for him or her no matter what personal characteristics this person holds. The second term, however, is broader and is about rights and freedoms protected on the federal level, such as the right to vote, to have freedom of speech, the right to privacy, and so on.

There is a number of different documents that state and protect the civil rights of US citizens, such as:

• Age Discrimination Act of 1975 prohibits discrimination on the basis of age in federal programs;
• Age Discrimination in Employment Act protects the employment rights of people that are older than 40 years;
• Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in almost any sphere of our lives;
• Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects the employment rights of people no matter what race, religion, sex, or national origin they have;
• Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act helps to provide people with the same medical and operational treatment no matter what personal characteristics they have;
• Fair Housing Act protects the right of people to sell, buy, or rent a dwelling without being discriminated against some personal features like race or gender;
• Family and Medical Leave Act is the exact document allowing us to leave our work for some time in order to care for our newborn or look after some of the ill members of the family;
• The Pregnancy Discrimination Act prohibits employers from declining a woman in a working place or a promotion because of her possibility to be or become pregnant during her life.

There are many more documents stating and protecting our right to equal treatment, and it might be a good idea for you to get acknowledged with the majority of them.