 After the war ended, the Democrats regained power in central and western Kentucky, which the former slaveholders and their culture dominated.Because this area was the more populous and the Democrats also passed legislation essentially disfranchising freedmen, the white Democrats controlled politics in the state and sent mostly their representatives to Congress for a century.In the mid-1960s, the federal Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act ended legal segregation of public facilities and protected voting rights of minorities.