As the American Civil Rights Movement successfully challenged legal segregation, it also created a cultural shift that transformed American music, fashion and culture. Folk, blues and gospel singers created harmonies and beats to drum forward the march for racial equality. Activists of the 1950s and 1960s, dressed in formal church attire, marched to demand racial equality. As the movement for racial equality gained momentum in the mid-1960s, the dress of white and black activists transformed to reflect the political and social tide for change. Dashikis, Afros, black leather jackets, berets, blue jeans, loose, flowing shirts, long hair and flowers all came to symbolize the 1960's, one of the most trans-formative periods for human and racial equality in American and world history.