In 1868, what was the most important reason to include the equal protection clause in the Fourteenth Amendment? Women's rights activists wanted equal protection. African Americans were not protected under the law. Southern whites were not protected under the law. Immigrants wanted equal protection.

The correct answer is: African Americans were not protected under the law.

Given that the clause was ratified after the end of the Civil War, event which one of its causes include the institution of slavery, it is no secret the main purpose of the clause was to stop discrimination against black people in America - even considering the fact that the clause seems to include all of the american citizens, not only the black ones -.

This clause cemented future law modifications regarding racial issues, such as the Supreme Court's abolition of laws that prohibited interracial marriage in 1967.

The correct answer is African Americans were not protected under the law.

The 14th amendment was one of the three amendments passed during the era of Reconstruction. Reconstruction consisted of a twelve year period after the Civil War in which the Union was reunited under one government.

With this in mind, the federal government got heavily involved in Southern society to ensure the rights of newly freed African Americans. One of the most important amendments was the 14th, which was implemented to ensure that blacks born on US soil had citizenship and that that were treated and protected equally by the US Constitution.