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Dred Scott v. Sanford
The 1857 Supreme Court decision ruling that a slave who escaped to a free state enjoyed no rights as a citizen and that Congress has no authority to ban slavery in the territories. This gave extra power to the states to keep slavery. -
Thirteenth Amendment
The constitutional amendment ratified after the Civil War that forbade slavery and involuntary servitude. This made a good majority of the country upset at Lincoln and it would take years of Reconstruction to equalize the freed slaves. -
Fourteenth Amendment
The constitutional amendment adopted after the Civil War that states, "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the priveledges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." Gave citizen rights and protections to the African Americans. -
Fifteenth Amendment
The constitutional amendment adopted in 1870 to extend suffrage to African Americans. This gave African American men the right to vote but was brutally by many aspects such as white primary and poll taxes. -
Poll Taxes
Small taxes levied often on the right to vote that fell due at a time of year when poor African American sharecroppers had the least cash on hand. This method was used by most Southern states to exclude African Americans from voting. Poll taxes more declared void by the 24th Amendment in 1964. -
White Primaries
They were primary elections in the Southern States of the United States of America in which any non-White voter was prohibited form participating. It was held mostly in Southern States and was not accepted as constitutional until 1944. -
Plessy v. Ferguson
An 1896 Supreme Court decision that provided a constitutional justification for segregation by ruling that a Louisiana law requiring "equal but seperate accomodations for the white and colored races" was constitutional. -
Nineteenth Amendment
This exetended the right to vote to women which ended a huge conflict but still made others upset. The women's activists groups majorly contributed to this victory. -
Brown v. Board of Education
The 1954 Supreme Court decision holding that school segregation was inherently unconstitutional because it violated the 14th Amendment's guarantee of equal protection. This case marked the end of legal segregation in the US. -
Affirmative Action
Affirmative action (known as positive discrimination in the United Kingdom and as employment equity in Canada and elsewhere) refers to policies that take factors including "race, color, religion, sex, or national origin"[1] into consideration in order to benefit of an underrepresented group "in areas of employment, education, and business".[2] The concept of affirmative action was introduced in the early 1960s as a way to combat racial discrimination in the hiring process, and in 1967, the conce -
Twenty-fourth Amendment
The constitutional amendment passed in 1964 that declared poll taxes void in federal elections. This finally made voting cheaper and African Americans had more accessibility to voting. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The law that made racial discrimination against any group in hotels, motels, and restaurants illegal and forbade many forms of job discrimination. This was the beginning of making life better for those who had been discriminated aganst. -
Voting Rights Act of 1965
A law designed to help end formal and informal barriers to African American suffrage. Under the law, hundreds of thousands of African Americans were registered, and the number of African American elected officials increased dramatically. -
Reed v. Reed
The landmark case in 1971 in which the Supreme Court for the first time upheld a claim of gender discrimination. -
Equal Rights Amendment
A constitutional amendment originally introduced in Congress in 1923 and passed by Congress in 1972, stating that "equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the US or by any state on account of sex." Despite public support, the amendment failed to acquire the necessary support from three-fourths of the state legislatures. -
Regents of the University of California v. Bakke
A 1978 Supreme Court decision holding that a state University could not admit less qualified individuals solely because of their race. -
Bowers v. Hardwick
A Supreme Court decision in 1986 that criminalized oral and anal sex in private between consenting adults when applied to homosexuals. This case was unfair originally for the policeman arrested the man without a warrant. -
Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990
A law passed in 1990 that requires employers and public facilities to make "reasonable accomodations" for people with disabilities and prohibits discrimination against these individuals in employment. -
Lawrence v. Texas
A landmark Supreme Court decision that struck down the sodomy law in Texas and, by extension, invalidated sodomy laws in thirteen other states, making same-sex sexual activity legal in every U.S. state and territory. The court changed its rulings in Bowers v. Hardwick after this passing. This led to a new way into gay rights and the modern conflicts of today. -
Fisher v. University of Texas
Fisher v. University of Texas is a United States Supreme Court case concerning the affirmative action admissions policy of the University of Texas at Austin. The Supreme Court voided the lower appellate court's ruling in favor of the University and remanded the case, holding that the lower court had not applied the standard of strict scrutiny,
