After the end of the American Civil War in 1865 the institution of slavery, which was the foundation of the society and economy of the southern states of the United States of America, was abolished. While the South was under northern occupation, the former slaves were granted the same rights as white citizens, but after 1876, when southerners regained control over the region, black citizens gradually lost their civil rights. By the beginning of the 20th century southern blacks practically lost the right to vote and were separated from whites in every aspect of their daily life. After a long period of oppression, between 1954 and 1965, multiple civil rights organisations using lawsuits, boycotts, protests and marches managed to induce the federal government to abolish the laws that southern whites used to repress blacks. After legal segregation in the South was abolished the leaders of the civil rights movement tried to solve the problem of institutional racism that was present in large cities across the USA, but without much success. After the death of Martin Luther King Junior, the most prominent leader of the civil rights movement, in 1968 the movement started to lose it's popularity because of the rise of alternative movements which advocated black isolationism instead of integration in american society.