African American founding fathers of the United States
Activists for legal equality and human liberty / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The African American founding fathers of the United States are the African Americans who worked to include the equality of all races as a fundamental principle of the United States. Beginning in the abolition movement of the 19th century, they worked for the abolition of slavery, and also for the abolition of second class status for free blacks. Their goals were temporarily realized in the late 1860s, with the passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the United States Constitution. However, after Reconstruction ended in 1877, the gains were partly lost and an era of Jim Crow gave blacks reduced social, economic and political status. The recovery was achieved in the Civil Rights Movement, especially in the 1950s and 1960s, under the leadership of blacks, such as Martin Luther King and James Bevel, as well as whites that included Supreme Court justices and Presidents. In the 21st century scholars have studied the African American founding fathers in depth.[1][2][3]