-
Supreme Court denied citizenship for black people.
In 1857, in the Dred Scott decision, the U.S. Supreme Court Upheld the Fugitive Slave Act and said that black people, no matter if they are free or enslaved, are not to be considered citizens. Chief Justice Taney said, “they have no rights with any white man is bound to respect.” Black people that were free were taxed, but they didn’t get the same protection and entitlements. The Supreme Court denied citizenship to black people which set the stage for their treatment as second class citizens. -
Black codes
Even though they were free, African Americans faced a bunch of obstacles and injustices during the Reconstruction era. By late 1865, the 13th Amendment official outlawed the institution of slavery. Under the Reconstruction policies of President Andrew Johnson, white southerners reestablished civil authority in the former Confederate states in 1865-1866. They made a bunch of restrictive laws called “black codes." which was made to restrict freed blacks’ activity. -
Civil Rights Act
The first United States federal law that defined US citizenship and affirmed that all citizens were equally protected by the law. It was mostly for protecting the civil rights of African-Americans in the wake of the American Civil War. President Johnson kept trying to veto the bill, but it still because a law because two-thirds majority in each house overcame the vote. The intention of the Civil Rights Act was to protect all persons in the U.S., including Blacks, in their civil rights. -
14th amendment to the Constitution is ratified
The amendment granted citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States” which included former slaves who had just been freed after the Civil War. It was rejected by most Southern states but was still ratified by the required three-fourths of the states. It’s known as the “Reconstruction Amendment,” and it forbids any state to deny any person “life, liberty or property, without due process of law” or “deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." -
Civil Rights Act
The Civil Rights Act was a U.S. federal law enacted during the Reconstruction Era that guaranteed African Americans equal treatment in public accommodations, public transportation, and prohibited exclusion from jury service. Discrimination in place of public accommodation, such as schools, was prohibited. -
Cumming v. Richmond County Board of Education
This was a class action suit decided by the Supreme Court of the U.S. It was a landmark case which sanctioned de jure (concerning the law) segregation of races in American schools. The decision was overruled by Brown vs. Board of Education though. -
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
It is an African-American civil rights organization in the US. The goal of it was “to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all person and to eliminate racial hatred and racial discrimination.” The NAACP became the main tool for the legal attack on segregation, eventually trying the Brown vs. Board of Education case. -
NAACP began challenging segregation in graduate and secondary schools
Charles Hamilton Houston, from NAACP, began trying to end segregation in graduate and professional schools. Houston developed a legal strategy that eventually led to victory over segregation in the nation’s schools through the Brown vs. Board case. His rationale for attacking segregated law schools was largely two-pronged. The establishment of separate but equal law school facilities for black and white students would become too costly for the states. -
Brown Vs. Board of Education
Even though they didn’t have much support, a small group of Topeka attorneys began fashioning a scaffold out of court papers. On June 25, 1951 in a Topeka courtroom, Charles Bledsoe, Charles and John Scott, and lawyers named Robert Carter and Jack Greenberg of the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund arrived ready to strike down segregation occurring in Topeka’s public elementary schools. The case was litigated concurrently before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1952.
