From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishcivil rightsˌcivil ˈrights noun [plural] RIGHT/HAVE THE RIGHT TOthe rights that every person should have, such as the right to vote or to be treated fairly by the law, whatever their sex, race, or religioncivil rights demonstration/movement etc a civil rights leader → bill of rights
Examples from the Corpus
civil rights• A civil rights campaigner dressed as a wrestler in a cape?• That was two years before it became a big civil rights issue.• He was a grown man, in full possession of his civil rights.• Liberal democracy, private life, civil rights and interest groups are all simply ideological constructs designed to pacify and mislead.• No sooner had voters approved Prop. 209 than civil rights lawyers filed appeals challenging its constitutionality.• It was 1964, the civil rights movement was sweeping across the land, all the way into the halls of Congress.• They all filed lawsuits, complaining that their civil rights had been violated.civil rights demonstration/movement etc• It provides a useful point of departure for a historian of the present-day civil rights movement in the Soviet Union.• He talked about the civil rights movement, the need for political engagement, careful analysis, honest leadership.• Johnson became committed to discrediting the civil rights movement and asked Hoover to provide the ammunition.• Jesse Jackson supplied a picture that helped give the civil rights movement moral weight.• The Republicans are in the civil rights movement the same as they are in the trade unions.• All were later to be intensely involved in the civil rights movement.• We all felt as though we had missed the civil rights movement.• So the civil rights movement began to splinter, and young blacks in particular followed more militant leaders. 