Title: The African American Struggle for Equality | American Government
Headings: The African American Struggle for Equality
The African American Struggle for Equality
Learning Objectives
Slavery and the Civil War
Reconstruction
Civil Rights in the Courts
Legislating Civil Rights
Continuing Challenges for African Americans
Affirmative Action
Practice Questions

Content: Ultimately, of course, the issue was decided by the Civil War (1861–1865), with the southern states seceding to defend their “states’ rights” to determine their own destinies without interference by the federal government. Foremost among the rights claimed by the southern states was the right to decide whether their residents would be allowed to own slaves. [ 5]
Although at the beginning of the war President Abraham Lincoln had been willing to allow slavery to continue in the South to preserve the Union, he changed his policies regarding abolition over the course of the war. The first step was the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. Although it stated “all persons held as slaves . . . henceforward shall be free,” the proclamation was limited in effect to the states that had rebelled. Slaves in states that had remained within the Union, such as Maryland and Delaware, and in parts of the Confederacy that were already occupied by the Union army, were not set free. Although slaves in states in rebellion were technically freed, because Union troops controlled relatively small portions of these states at the time, it was impossible to ensure that enslaved people were freed in reality and not simply on paper. [ 6]
In this memorial engraving from 1865 (the year he was assassinated), President Abraham Lincoln is shown with his hand resting on a copy of the Emancipation Proclamation (a). Despite popular belief, the Emancipation Proclamation (b) actually freed very few slaves, though it did change the meaning of the war.