After the humiliating American civil war, its federal government imposed black/white equality throughout the country. However, each state retained some room for maneuver. In America, local laws can be in addition to federal laws. Each States allowed by law to impose racial segregation measures through which southern states of America used the system to get around the principle of equality that were legally imposed on them by the abolition of slavery. This developed the black codes; a ban of interracial marriage, strict separation of black and white on transport, public places, education, even in churches and more disturbingly, the addition of literacy or hereditary tests for blacks in order to vote, creating the system equal but separate or a confrontation of the federal state and local mindset. In 1954, the supreme court ruled such laws to be unconstitutional. Such actions were only held true in theory giving birth to people like Martin Luther King or Malcom X who used civil disobedience or creation of new state where blacks can freely pursue choices, respectively.
Similarly, others countries have also experienced same sort of racial discrimination. In 1948, South Africa saw a regime of racial separation between indigenous blacks and European population. The ruling white community imposed apartheid. It took 40 years for apartheid to wane when a coalesced action taken by its president and Nelson Mandela, who spent 27 years in prison for his largely peaceful protest.
“We have to talk about liberating minds as well as liberating society.” –Angela Davis