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Cival War
A war between political factions or regions within the same country. -
The Civil War
The Civil War was fought in thousands of different places, from southern Pennsylvania to Texas; from New Mexico to the Florida coast. The majority of the fighting took place in the states of Virginia and Tennessee. The Civil War was also contested on the Atlantic Ocean as far off as the coast of France, the Gulf of Mexico, and the brown water of the Mississippi River and its tributaries. -
13th Amendment
The 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution, passed by the Senate on April 8, 1864, by the House on January 31, 1865, and ratified on December 6, 1865, abolished slavery as a legal institution. The Constitution, although never mentioning slavery by name, refers to slaves as "such persons" in Article I, Section 9 and “a person held to service or labor” in Article IV, Section 2. The Thirteenth Amendment, in direct terminology, put an end to this. -
13th Amendment Continued
The amendment states: Section 1:"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. Section 2: Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation." -
15th Amendment
The 15th Amendment, granting African-American men the right to vote, was formally adopted into the U.S. Constitution on March 30, 1870. Passed by Congress the year before, the amendment reads: "the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." Despite the amendment, by the late 1870s, various discriminatory practices were used to prevent African Americans from exe -
Plessy V. Ferguson
Plessey v. Ferguson is an extremely important court case in that it gave legal standing to the idea of separate but equal. This doctrine required that any separate facilities had to be of equal quality. However, as segregation grew in the South this was often not the case? The Plessey decision would be used as a precedent until 1954 with the Supreme Court decision in Brown. -
THE BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION
Benjamin Roberts, an African-American printer, filed suit against the city of Boston, where his 5-year-old daughter was required to travel past five white public schools to reach her segregated school. He based his suit on an ordinance that stated, "Any child excluded from the public schools could recover damages." As part of an organized effort by the African-American community to end segregation in schools, litigants were represented by U.S. Senator and abolitionist Charles Sumner and a promin -
African American Civil Rights Movement
In 1960, when the civil rights movement first began to gain national attention, African Americans had been working to gain political and economic rights for nearly a century. Blacks had made some progress, but the laws that many southern state legislatures had written to prevent blacks and whites from living as equals—called Jim Crow laws—continued to separate the races in restaurants, schools, theaters, parks, and other public facilities in many states in the South. Those blacks who had migrate -
The Civil Rights Act of 1964
(1964), comprehensive U.S. legislation intended to end discrimination based on race, color, religion, or national origin; it is often called the most important U.S. law on rights since Reconstruction (1865–77). Title I of the act guarantees equal voting rights by removing registration requirements and procedures biased against minorities and the underprivileged. Title II prohibits segregation or discrimination in places of public accommodation involved in interstate commerce. Title VII bans disc -
Martin Luther King Assasination
At 6:01 p.m. on April 4, 1968, civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was hit by a sniper's bullet. King had been standing on the balcony in front of his room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, when, without warning, he was shot. The .30-caliber rifle bullet entered King's right cheek, traveled through his neck, and finally stopped at his shoulder blade. King was immediately taken to a nearby hospital but was pronounced dead at 7:05 p.m.Violence and controversy followed. In out -
The Civil Rights Act of 1968
On April 11th, President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1968 – also known as the Fair Housing Act – into law. In his broadcasted comments President Johnson describes the bill as another important step forward in the cause of Civil Rights. The bill signing took place a week after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. whose memory President Johnson invokes in his speech. In addition to President Johnson's comments and imagery of the President signing the bill, this footage also feat -
Emmett Till Murder
Emmett Till, a 14-year-old boy from Chicago, was visiting his relatives in Mississippi when he was snatched from his great-uncle's home on the night of August 28. He was then beaten, shot in the head, and then thrown into Tallahatchie River. His body was found three days later. Ostensibly, the murderers killed Till because he whistled at a white woman. When Emmett Till's body was found, his mom, Mamie Till-Mobley, insisted on having Emmett's mutilated body returned to Chicago, where she had an o
