Final answer:
Racial injustice continued after the abolition of slavery due to persistent racism, Jim Crow laws, practices like sharecropping, and violence from groups like the KKK. Efforts to combat discrimination through legal challenges and activism faced significant opposition, with institutionalized racism deeply entrenched in American society.
Step-by-step explanation:
Racism After the Abolition of Slavery
Despite the end of legal slavery in 1865, racial injustice persisted in the United States. The Republican Reconstruction program, aimed at guaranteeing black rights, failed to overcome deep-seated racism and southern white violence. African Americans in the South often labored as sharecroppers or tenants on plantations, still trapped in a cycle of poverty and facing systematic discrimination such as public segregation and voter suppression through mechanisms like the Jim Crow laws. Moreover, groups like the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) continued to use terror tactics, including lynchings, to enforce racial hierarchies.
In the aftermath of World War II, African Americans started to challenge discriminatory policies through legal means and grassroots activism, targeting issues such as segregated housing, transportation, and education. Despite these efforts, and the eventual success of civil rights legislation in the 1960s, African Americans still faced significant institutionalized racism and prejudice from those intent on maintaining white supremacy.