The Road to Equality

After the Civil War, former slaves hoped for equality. Instead, they faced a society that was remained divided. Segregation was the rule— ”separate but equal.” Each state was left to decide what that meant. Different practices ensued. Public examples came to light in restaurants, buses, trains, and finally schools. Segregation ended when the US Supreme Court ruled that “separate but equal” had no place in schools. The National Park Service preserves places and stories from this difficult time in the nation’s history. Discover those stories here.