-
Period: to
Civil Rights Movement
-
13th Amendment
This amendment states that slavery and involuntary servitude is illegal in the United States, unless as a punishment for a crime, given that the accused was convicted. This amendment is incredibly significant because it abolished slavery in the United States. This amendment was passed during the Civil War, so it did not legally apply to the slaves in the then Confederate States of America. However, it still outlawed slavery and impacted the very fabric of the nation, specifically in the south. -
Poll Tax
Poll taxes are taxes that one was required to pay before he or she was permitted to vote. Many Southern states began utilizing poll taxes during the Reconstruction period to hinder African Americans from voting. These taxes were incredibily significant in that they prohibited many African Americans from exercising their right to vote. Legislation would later be passed declaring poll taxes unconstitutional. -
14th Amendment
This amendment declares that states cannot deny anyone “equal protection of the laws.” This particular portion of the amendment emphasizes that the laws must give equivalent “protection” to all people of the United States. No state shall deprive people of the United States of life, liberty, or property. -
15th Amendment
This amendment extended suffrage, or the right to vote, to African Americans. Obvioulsy this amendment is incredbily significant as it finally allowed African American men to vote. Voting was now open to all, despite race. However, many states, specifically Southern states, limited the availability of voting to African Americans through poll taxes, literacy tests, intimidation, and much more. These limitations would eventually be eliminated and the rights outlined in this amendment be protected. -
Jim Crow
President Rutherford B. Hayes promised to pull troops out of the South, instigating the South to reclaim power by creating Jim Crow laws. These laws gave African Americans separate public facilities, school systems, restrooms, etc. Most of these practices were common in the north as well at first, but were not law. This is significant because it was legally imposed segregation, specific to the states. -
Literacy Tests
Literacy tests were employed to keep people of color and poor whites from voting and were very subjective due to the discretion of the officials in charge of votor registration. The official could ask the easiest questions to someone who they wanted to pass and ask the hardest questions with unrealistic time limits to those that they did not want voting. This did not represent the ideals of the American ideology. -
Plessy v. Ferguson
Railway companies carrying passengers in their coaches in the state of Louisiana were required to provide equal, but separate, accomodations for the white and colored races. This case begs the question of if states can constitutionally enact legislation requiring persons of different races to use "seperate but equal" segregated facilities. The court ruled that states can indeed constitutionally enact legislation requiring persons of different races to use "seperate but equal" facilities. -
19th Amendment
The 19th Amendment was the Constitutional amendment that guaranteed women's suffrage, or the right to vote. This legislation was monumental in that it legally acknowledged women as citizens of the United States and guaranteed them rights. Women had been fighting for suffrage for decades previous to its passage; however, events such as the Civil War, had consumed the nation's attention. Women felt more empowered and became more aware of their true potential. -
Korematsu v United States
Korematsu lived in San Leandro, California and violated Civilian Exclusion Order No. 34 when Presidential Executive Order 9066 gave military authority to exclude citizens with Japanese ancestry from areas that were considered invaluable to national defense and potentially vulnerable to espionage. Korematsu challenged the national government, claiming that the President and Congress went beyond their war powers by restricting the rights of Americans of Japanese descent. The Court sided with U.S. -
Sweatt v Painter
Petitioner was denied admission to the state supported University of Texas Law School solely because he is a Negro and state law forbids the admission of Negroes to that Law School. The supreme court holds that the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment requires that petitioner be admitted to the University fo Texas Law School. -
Brown v Board of Education
This case was filed against the Topeka, Kansas school board by Oliver Brown, a parent of one of the children denied access to Topeka's white schools. The Court held that the racial segregation of children in public schools violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amemdment. It put the Constitution on the side of racial equality and transformed the civil rights movement into a full revolution. -
Montgomery Bus Boycott
This was a bus boycott led by Martin Luther King Jr. in Montgomer, AL and surrounding areas. It was instigated by the arrest of Rosa Parks for refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white man. This event was a thirteen month boycott that ended with the Supreme Court ruling that segregation on buses was unconstitutional. This event gave greater worldwide publicity to racial discrimination. It was a united, peaceful, African American effort to protest segregation. -
Ruby Bridges
Ruby Bridges was the first African American child to attend a white elementary school in the South. On November 14, 1960, Ruby began school at William Franz Elementary School in New Orleans. Teachers refused to teach Ruby and kids left the school. Ruby was accompanied by U.S. Marshals on her walk to school, as the path was consumed with protesters threatening to kill her. This was significant because it displayed the prejudice and hate many whites felt, and how some did not support integration. -
24th Amendment
This amendment declared that poll taxes were unconstitutional and illegal. It claimed that voting could not be limited or charged. This outlawed poll taxes, literacy tests, and other forms of limitations on the availability of voting. This was incredibly significant in that it made voting more accessibly ot all, specifically to African Americans. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
This act made racial discrimination illegal in places of public accomodation. It forbade many forms of job discrimination as well. Additionally, it authorized the U.S. Department to desegregate public facilities if the states failed to follow this legislation. This act is incredibly significant in that it is legislation to desegregate. Many of the Jim Crow laws imposed by Southern states were now illlegal. -
Voting Rights Act of 1965
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was pushed through Congress by President Lyndon B. Johnson. This legislation eliminated poll taxes, literacy requirement, and other restrictions on voting by declaring them unconstitutional. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was incredibly significant in that it made voting more available to African Americans and eliminated many injustices in the voting system. -
Loving v Virginia
Mildred Jeter and Richard Loving were an interracial couple in 1958 who went to the District of Columbia to get married. When they returned to their home state of Virginia, they were charged with violating the state's anitmiscegenation statute, which banned inter-racial marriages. They were sentenced to one year in jail. The Supreme Court unamimously sided with the couple and decided that Virginia's antimiscegenation law violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. -
Robert Kennedy Speech in Indianapolis upon the death of MLK
Robert Kennedy, then a senator from New York, was campaigning to become the Democratic candidate for the presidency. While in Indiana, he learned that Martin Luther King Jr. had been shot and died. Instead of delivering a campaign speech, Kennedy provided brief condolances and a passionate push for peace.This speech is considered to be one of the greatest public addresses in modern history. -
Affirmative Action
Affirmative action is used to redress historical American injustices against POC and women. It is often referred to as "leveling the playing field." It is used to counteract racism and sexism and reestablish the great discrepancies in those employed and the payrolls of those with jobs in comparison with their white counterparts. -
Reed v Reed
Ms. Reed filed suit alleging a statute that prefers males over females in the administration of an estate that the Petitioner and the Respondent, Mr. Reed have equal claim, violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court held that this gender-based classification violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution. -
Regents of the University of California v Bakke
This particular case analyzes if the special admissions program at the University of California is constitutionally acceptable. Bakke, a white applicant to the University of California sued the school on the grounds that his denial of admission on racial grounds was a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme court upheld that the special admissions program is not constitutional, but race may be considered as a factor in the admissions process. -
Equal Rights Amendment
The ERA affirms the equal application of the Constitution to all persons regardless of their sex, was written in 1923 by Alice Paul. After women's right to vote was guaranteed by the 19th amendment in 1920, she proposed the ERA as the next step in confirming "equal justice under law" for all citizens. The ERA was ratified by 35 states, three states short of the 38 required to put it into the constitution. -
Bowers v Hardwick
Michael Hardwick challenged a Georgia statute criminalizing sodomy, invoking the Constitution to suggest that it confers a fundamental right upon homosexuals to engage in sodomy. The Court decided that there was no constitutional protection for sodomy and that states had the right to outlaw it's practices. -
Americans with Disabilites Act
The ADA prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in employment, transportation, public accommodation, communications, and governmental activities. The purpose of the law is to make sure that people with disabilities have the same rights and opportunities of everyone else. -
Lawrence and Garner v Texas
This case questions if the criminal convictions of John Lawrence and Tyron Garner under the Texas "homosexual conduct" law violate the Fourteenth Amendment guarantee of equal protection of laws. It begs the question of if adult consensual intimacy in the home is a viable criminal conviction. The Supreme Court upheld that the Texas statute was constitutional. -
Fisher v Texas
This case questioned whether the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment permits the consideration of race in undergraduate admissions decisions. The Court held that it was the reviewing court to "verify" that the school in question was necessary to achieve the benefits of diversity. Fisher filed this suit against the university under the claim that the University of Texas' use of racial consideration in admission decisions was in violation of the equal protection clause. -
Indiana Gay Rights Court Battle
The U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the state to recognize the same-sex marriage of one Hoosier couple. This is a new development in a week of court rulings that legalized same-sex marriage in Indiana before banning it again three days later. This had led to a vast amount of same-sex couples in Indiana in a sort of marriage "limbo" with intricate nuances regarding legality. Whatever happens next, the court needs to make a firm decision on this issue to reconcile the past discrepancies.
