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14th admendment
"The following year, the 14th Amendment broadened the definition of citizenship, granting —equal protection” of the Constitution to former slaves. Congress required southern states to ratify the 14th Amendment and enact universal male suffrage before they could rejoin the Union, and the state constitutions during those years were the most progressive in the region’s history."
http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/black-history-milestones -
1870 15th Admendment
"The 15th Amendment, adopted in 1870, guaranteed that a citizen’s right to vote would not be denied —on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”
White men did not like how Blacks were able to vote and partake in goverment and some even resorted to violance to keep Blacks from voteing ( the KKK) -
1896: Plessy vs. Ferguson
"By asserting that the equal protection clause was not violated as long as reasonably equal conditions were provided to both groups, the Court established the —separate but equal” doctrine that would thereafter be used for assessing the constitutionality of racial segregation laws. Plessy v. Ferguson stood as the overriding judicial precedent in civil rights cases until 1954, when it was reversed by the Court’s verdict in Brown v. Board of Education." http://www.history.com/topics/black-history -
1909: NAACP founded
"First established in Chicago, the NAACP had expanded to more than 400 locations by 1921. One of its earliest programs was a crusade against lynching and other lawless acts; those efforts—including a nationwide protest of D.W. Griffiths’ silent film Birth of a Nation (1915), which glorified white supremacy and the Ku Klux Klan—would continue into the 1920s, playing a crucial role in drastically reducing the number of lynchings carried out in the United States." http://www.history.com/topics/bla