During the 1880s, many of the liberties that African-Americans enjoyed as citizens were rapidly taken away by the U.S. Supreme Court, state legislatures and everyday people who did not believe that African-Americans should be able to participate in the political process. 

As laws were created on the federal and local level to disenfranchise African-American communities, men such as Booker T. Washington established Tuskegee Institute and women such as Ida B.