Separate Is Not Equal - Brown v. Board of Education

Smithsonian National Museum of American History Behring Center



header
Segregated America
  • Promise of Freedom
  • White Only
  • Separate but Equal
  • The Supreme Court
The Battleground
Legal Campaign
Five Communities Change a Nation
The Decision
Legacy
First black members of Congress

First black members of Congress

For much of the Reconstruction era, from 1869 to 1877, the federal government assumed political control of the former states of the Confederacy. Voters in the South elected more than 600 African American state legislators and 16 members of Congress. Black and white citizens established several progressive state governments that attempted to extend educational opportunities and civil and political rights to everyone.

Back to Promise of Freedom