Still, African American activists and their white allies wanted to see a federal ban. Their strongest ally in Congress was Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner, who in the early 1870s fought for a federal law that would bar discrimination by railroads, steamboats, public conveyances, hotels, restaurants, licensed theaters, public schools, juries, churches, and cemetery associations. The measure was controversial, including among Republicans. Congress finally passed Sumner’s law in 1875, after the senator had died and with the sections barring discrimination in schools, churches, and cemeteries
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