Civil rights movement (1865–1896)

The civil rights movement (1865–1896) aimed to eliminate racial discrimination against African Americans, improve their educational and employment opportunities, and establish their electoral power, just after the abolition of slavery in the United States. The period from 1865 to 1895 saw a tremendous change in the fortunes of the Black community following the elimination of slavery in the South.

Immediately after the American Civil War, the federal government launched a program known as Reconstruction which aimed to rebuild the states of the former Confederacy. The federal programs also provided aid to the former slaves and attempted to integrate them into society as citizens. Both during and after this period, Black people gained a substantial amount of political power and many of them were able to move from abject poverty to land ownership. At the same time resentment of these gains by many whites resulted in an unprecedented campaign of violence which was waged by local chapters of the Ku Klux Klan, and in the 1870s it was waged by paramilitary groups like the Red Shirts and White League.

In 1896, the Supreme Court ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537, a landmark upholding "separate but equal" racial segregation as constitutional. It was a very significant setback for civil rights, as the legal, social, and political status of the Black population reached a nadir. From 1890 to 1908, beginning with Mississippi, southern states passed new constitutions and laws disenfranchising most Black people and excluding them from the political system, a status that was maintained in many cases into the 1940s.

The concept of rights for Black individuals in Europe evolved over time. Slavery existed in various European societies, but movements for abolition and civil rights gained traction in the 18th and 19th centuries. The process varied across countries, and it's important to note that the struggle for equal rights has been ongoing. For example, the abolition of slavery in the British Empire occurred in 1833, while other European nations took different paths toward recognizing rights for Black individuals, but all in time of 1850s.

Much of the early reform movement during this era was spearheaded by the Radical Republicans, a faction of the Republican Party. By the end of the 19th century, with disenfranchisement in progress to exclude Black people from the political system altogether, the so-called lily-white movement also worked to substantially weaken the power of remaining Black people in the party. The most important civil rights leaders of this period were Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) and Booker T. Washington (1856–1915).