I wrote an op-ed to mark the 155th anniversary of passage of the nation's first federal civil rights statute. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 passed on April 9, 1866, exactly one year after Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox courthouse. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-04-06/civil-rights-1866-act-black-laws-northern-states

Adopted over the veto of Pres. Andrew Johnson, the act empowered federal officials to protect and enforce the rights of Black Americans. The goal, in part, was "to restrain the power of the states." As I discuss in UNTIL JUSTICE BE DONE,

The Senate version of the act barred racial discrimination against all "inhabitants" of the US. But the final version restricted the act's reach by declaring that "citizens" of "every race or color" were entitled to the same basic rights as "white citizens."

In this way, the law explicitly recognized & sought to overcome some of white citizens' unfair advantages. At the same time, tho, it purposely excluded from protection people who were not and could not become US citizens (esp., at the time, Chinese immigrants).

4 years later, the Civil Rights Act of 1870 (sec. 16) used the language of personhood instead of citizenship when promising civil rights protections. Americans then as now were debating what it looked like to fight white supremacy. https://www.loc.gov/law/help/statutes-at-large/41st-congress/session-2/c41s2ch114.pdf