During the 1960s Americans saw the rise of the counterculture. Counterculture, which was a group of movements focused on achieving personal and cultural liberation, was embraced by America's youth of the decade. Because many Americans were members of different counterculture movements, the counterculture influenced American society. As a result of the achievements of counterculture movements, the United States became a more open, more tolerant, and freer country in the 1960s. One of the most powerful counterculture movements in the 1960s was the civil rights movement. In 1964, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act to end racial discrimination in employment, in institutions such as hospitals and schools, and in privately owned public accommodations. In 1965, Congress returned suffrage to Southern blacks by passing the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (Foner 926). In the case of Loving v. Virginia (1967), the Supreme Court ruled that laws banning interracial marriage were unconstitutional (Foner 951). Thanks to the civil rights movement in the 1960s, minorities gained more rights than before the 1960s. While the 1960s were a time of progress for minorities, they were also a time of progress for women. In 1963, Congress passed the Equal Pay Act, which outlawed workplace discrimination based on a person's sex (Foner 944). To ensure that women had the same opportunities as men in work, education, and political participation, the National Organization for Women was created in 1966 (Foner 944). The 1960s also marked the beginning of a public campaign to repeal state laws that banned abortion or left the decision to terminate a pregnancy to doctors rather than to the woman (Foner 945). Although the 1960s were a decade in which the United States became more of an open, more tolerant, and freer country, in some ways it became less of those things. During the 1960s, America intervened in other nations and attempted to stop the advance of the civil rights movement. Because of American foreign policy and the American fight against the civil rights movement, it is clear that the 1960s in America were not simply a decade of openness, tolerance, and freedom in the United States. minorities were doing with the civil rights movement. In 1961, a group known as the Congress of Racial Equality was attacked by a mob while the group was checking for compliance with court orders banning segregation on interstate buses and trains and in terminals (Foner 914).