Conclusion

Summary

What is now often called the “civil rights revolution” – meaning the Civil Rights Acts passed in the 1960s through the 1990s, with continuing and expansive amendments extending into the first quarter of this century as well – is viewed by many today as what Bruce Ackerman has taught a generation of constitutional scholars to think of as a “constitutional moment.” That entire revolution, Ackerman has argued throughout the last decade, should be understood as a constitutional moment “full stop”: not a quasi-constitutional moment, but a full-bodied constitutional moment, to quote from his recent book-length defense of this identification.