Civil rights have only come to those that demand and explain their point pointing to of course the law of the land. For example...
1870 to 1875- Several women--including Virginia Louisa Minor, Victoria Woodhull, and Myra Bradwell--attempt to use the Fourteenth Amendment in the courts to secure the vote (Minor and Woodhull) or the right to practice law (Bradwell). They all are unsuccessful.
1872- Susan B. Anthony is arrested and brought to trial in Rochester, New York, for attempting to vote for Ulysses S. Grant in the presidential election. At the same time, Sojourner Truth appears at a polling booth in Battle Creek, Michigan, demanding a ballot; she is turned away.
1874- The Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) is founded by Annie Wittenmyer. With Frances Willard at its head (1876), the WCTU became an important force in the fight for woman suffrage. Not surprisingly, one of the most vehement opponents to women's enfranchisement was the liquor lobby, which feared women might use the franchise to prohibit the sale of liquor.
1878- A Woman Suffrage Amendment is introduced in the United States Congress. The wording is unchanged in 1919, when the amendment finally passes both houses.
People wouldn't dare today quote the bible stating that women don't have the right to vote as it was before the movement.
From the end of the civil war until 1954 separate but equal ruled the ideals and practices of this nation until Brown V. Board of education said separate is not equal. A year later Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat and is arrested making civil rights the news of the day for months. Sept. 1957 the President of the United States had to send FEDERAL TROOPS to Little Rock to break the lines held by the Gov and the National Guard of Arkansas to let children attend school. 10 years later Loving V Virginia strikes down Racial Integrity Acts, prior to this the bible again used to quote how races shouldn't intermarry let alone the prevailing attitude of the South where non-whites weren't looked on as separate but equal but sub human nearly.
People whom quote the bible today for racism are looked upon as foolish, taking things out of context...
The homosexuals that are still suffering with out equal rights are fighting. Just like in the past people used their bigotry to try to stop equal rights for all but the courts and the legislators of this nation eventually saw not only the injustice of the situation but had to understand that the Constitution of this great land was/is the last word and should be used to grant freedoms not impose more discrimination. Even the womans suffrage had failures at the Supreme Court level but they did over come as shall we!