Editing 20th century (section)

== Social change ==
[[File:Martin Luther King Jr National Historic Site (36233249121).jpg|thumb|[[Martin Luther King Jr.]], an [[African Americans|African American]] [[civil rights movement]] leader ([[I Have a Dream|ishington, August 1963]])]]
Starting from the century, strong discrimination based on race and sex is significant in most societies. Although the [[Atlantic slave trade]] had ended in the 19th century, movements for equality for non-white people in the white-dominated societies of [[Civil rights movement|North America]], Europe, and [[Apartheid|South Africa]] continued. By the end of the 20th century, in many parts of the world, women had the same legal rights as men, and racism had come to be seen as unacceptable, a sentiment often backed up by legislation.<ref>Fleegler, Robert L. [http://mdah.state.ms.us/pubs/bilbo.pdf Theodore G. Bilbo and the Decline of Public Racism, 1938–1947] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090206151355/http://mdah.state.ms.us/pubs/bilbo.pdf |date=2009-02-06 }}. Retrieved 23 December 2014</ref> When the [[India|Republic of India]] is [[Constitution of India|constituted]], the disadvantaged classes of the [[caste system in India]] became entitled to [[affirmative action]] benefits in education, employment and government.

Attitudes toward pre-marital sex changed rapidly in many societies during the [[sexual revolution]] of the 1960s and 1970s. Attitudes towards homosexuality also began to change in the later part of the century.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Zadey|first=Siddhesh|date=2019-11-25|title=Constitution Day: Do We Truly Know the 'Real' Ambedkar?|url=https://www.thequint.com/voices/blogs/indian-constitution-ambedkar-caste-system-reservation-policy-activism-social-barriers|access-date=2021-07-30|website=TheQuint|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Vundru |first=Raja Sekhar  |date=2020-08-16 |title=Ambedkar and political reservation |url=https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/ambedkar-and-political-reservation-6557591/ |access-date=2021-07-30 |website=The Indian Express |language=en}}</ref>

Trauma brought on by events like World War I and World War II, with their [[World War I casualties#Casualties in the borders of 1914–1918|military death tolls]] alone [[World War II casualties#Total deaths by country|at bare minimum]] being 29,697,963, and the [[Spanish flu|Spanish Flu]], whose death count alone exceeded that, helped make society in many countries more [[Egalitarianism|egalitarian]] and less neglectful of the poor.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Barry |first=John M. |author-link=John M. Barry |date=November 2017 |title=How the Horrific 1918 Flu Spread Across America |url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/journal-plague-year-180965222/ |access-date=2024-05-08 |website=[[Smithsonian Magazine]] |language=en}}</ref>