Blacks in History
...6 the U.S. Supreme Court rules that segregated, or "separate but equal," public facilities for whites and African Americans are legal, this rule held all the way up until 1954. There are many African Americans who helped shape the future and made a better life for today’s African Americans. There were many African American spokespersons that helped motivate and inspire African Americans to keep pushing forward. For instance Booker T. Washington who sought, but never demanded social betterment for African Americans through the economic progress. Another well known activist was Martin Luther King Jr. who committed his life to nonviolent activism and bringing the civil rights movement to the forefront of American public life. The 15th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, ratified in 1870, prohibits federal or state governments from infringing on a citizen's right to vote "on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." The civil rights activism of the late 1950s and 1960s reached a high point when the Reverend Martin Luther King lead the “Selma march” that focused America's attention on this unforgivable inequity, and moved a sympathetic President to work with Congress to achieve a quick passage for the...