Many Black males took engaged in politics during Reconstruction by casting ballots and running for office. After Reconstruction came to an end in 1877, new discriminatory legislation were passed in the southern states. African Americans attempted to express their rights through legal challenges as efforts to uphold white supremacy through law escalated. When the Supreme Court decided in Plessy v. Ferguson that so-called "separate but equal" facilities, including as public transportation and schools, were constitutional in 1896, it was a dismal outcome for this campaign. From this point on, discrimination and segregation were acceptable and sanctioned until the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

African Americans experienced prejudice on a social, economic, and legal level. Theaters, hotels, and restaurants kept them apart in inferior settings or wouldn't let them in at all. Shops served them last.

African-American students in public schools that were segregated frequently got an education that was inferior than that of white children, with outdated or worn-out textbooks, underpaid teachers, and poorer facilities and resources. In Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, the Supreme Court ruled in 1954 that educational discrimination was unconstitutional. However, it took another 10 years for Congress to fully restore blacks' civil rights, including protections for the right to vote.