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The 13th amendment
The 13th amendment formally abolished slavery. It declared neither slavery nor Involuntary servitude, accept as a punishment for crime wherof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United states , or any place subject to their jurisdiction. -
14th Amendment
The 14th Amendment granted citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States which included former slaves recently freed. It forbids any state to deny a persons right to life, liberty, and property with out due process of the law. -
15th amendment
The 15th Amendment granted African-American men the right to vote by declaring that the right of citizens of the United States 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. -
Jim Crow
Jim Crow is often used to describe the segregation laws, rules, and customs which arose after Reconstruction ended in 1877 and continued until the mid-1960s. It took away many of the rights which had been granted to blacks through the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments? -
Plessy v. Ferguson
This was a United States Supreme Court decision that upheld the state laws that required racial segregation in public facilities. The doctrine that Plessy v. Ferguson went by was "separate but equal". This meant that there could be an African American school and a caucasian school, but they were to have the same opportunities and supplies (they weren't equal). The "separate but equal" doctrine was followed until the Brown v. Board of Education decision. -
19th Amendment
This amendment allowed for women suffrage (the right to vote) in the United States. The amendment was drafted by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. They first introduced it in 1878 and it wasn't until 1919 when Congress submitted it to the states for ratification. -
Equal Rights Amendment
This amendment is not yet part of the Constitution. It was written in 1923 by Alice Paul, suffragist leader and founder of the National Woman's Party. There have been 35 states to ratify the amendment, but 38 are needed to put it in the Constitution. People around America are still fighting today to get the ERA ratified by 3 more states. -
Literacy Tests
Literacy tests were used during the time between the passing of the 15th Amendment and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. They were mainly used in the southern states to keep the African American men from voting. -
lorematsu v. united states
During World War II, a military commander ordered all persons of Japanese descent to evacuate the West Coast. The Petitioner, Korematsu (Petitioner), a United States citizen of Japanese descent, was convicted for failing to comply with the order. Legal restrictions that curtail the civil rights of a single racial group are subject to the most rigid scrutiny. But, pressing public necessity may sometimes justify such restrictions. -
Sweatt v. Painter
A black man named Heman Marion Sweatt wanted to study at the School of Law of the University of Texas. He was denied admission because he was an African American. The University of Texas attempted to make a school for African Americans and named it "Texas State University for Negroes". The court decided that the separate school failed to qualify, both because of quantitative differences in facilities and intangible factors. Sweatt was able to attend the school in the end. -
Brown v. Board of Education
This was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court said that the "separate but equal" public schools for black and white students was unconstitutional. This case overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896. De jure racial segregation was also ruled to be a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. Integration also became a major result of this case. Brown v. Board of Education was a huge victory during the civil rights movement. -
Montgomery Bus boycott
Sparked by the arrest of Rosa Parks on 1 December 1955, the Montgomery bus boycott was a 13-month mass protest that ended with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that segregation on public buses is unconstitutional. -
Poll Taxes
Poll Taxes were used as a de facto segregation technique to keep African Americans from voting ever since the 15th Amendment granted the African American men the right to vote. The practice of poll taxes was most common in the southern states and kept several African Americans from voting. Many of the poll taxes included a grandfather clause which allowed any adult male whose father or grandfather had voted prior to the abolition of slavery to vote without paying the tax. -
Ruby Bridges
she was one of only six African-American students to pass the test. Ruby would be the only African-American student to attend the William Frantz School, near her home, and the first black child to attend an all-white elementary school in the South. -
affirmative action
A set of procedures designed to eliminate unlawful discrimination between applicants, remedy the results of such prior discrimination, and prevent such discrimination in the future. Applicants may be seeking admission to an educational program or looking for professional employment. -
24th amendment
The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax. -
Civil Rights act 1964
civil rights act forbade discrimination on the basis of sex as well as race in hiring, promoting, and firing. -
Voting Rights Act of 1965
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson. It made discriminatory voting practices illegal because they were so common in the southern states after the Civil War. Some of these practices included poll taxes, literacy tests, and harassment. This act was put into place to basically enforce the Fifteenth Amendment of the Constitution. -
Loving v Virginia
The state of Virginia enacted laws making it a felony for a white person to intermarry with a black person or the reverse. The constitutionality of the statutes was called into question. Restricting the freedom to marry solely on the basis of race violates the central meaning of the Equal Protection Clause. -
Robert Kennedys speech
presidential candidate Robert Kennedy received the news that Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated. Kennedy was about to speak in Indianapolis and some in his campaign wondered if they should go ahead with the rally. -
Reed v. Reed Case
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Regents of the University of California v. Bakke
the Univ. of California, Davis, medical school had, by maintaining a 16% minority quota, discriminated against Allan Bakke, 1940–, a white applicant. The legal implications of the decision were clouded by the Court's division. Bakke had twice been rejected by the medical school, even though he had a higher grade point average than a number of minority candidates who were admitted. As a result of the decision, Bakke was admitted to the medical school and graduated in 1982. -
Bowers v. Hardwick
The Petitioner, Ms. Reed the mother of a deceased child, alleges a statute that prefers males over females in the administration of an estate to which they both have equal claims, violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. -
Americans with Disabilities Act
This act prohibits discrimination against those with disabilities. Some of the actions that the act has made the United States take are things such as requiring that employers provide reasonable accommodations to employees with disabilities and accessibility requirements have been imposed on public accommodations. -
Lawrence v. Texas
Police found two men engaged in sexual conduct, in their home, and they were arrested under a Texas statute that prohibited such conduct between two men. While homosexual conduct is not a fundamental right, intimate sexual relationships between consenting adults are protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. -
Fisher v. Texas
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, articulated in Grutter v. Bollinger and Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, to the University's admissions program. The Supreme Court's ruling in Fisher took Grutter and Ba
