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African Americans: 3/5 Compromise
The population of slaves would be counted as three-fifths in total when apportioning Representatives, as well as Presidential electors and taxes. The Three-Fifths Compromise was proposed by James Wilson and Roger Sherman, who were both delegates for the Constitutional Convention of 1787. -
Women: Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions is Signed
The Declaration of Sentiments, also known as the Declaration of Rights and Sentiments, is a document signed in 1848 by 68 women and 32 men—100 out of some 300 attendees at the first women's rights convention to be organized by women. -
Scott v. Sandford
Supreme Court ruled that Americans of African descent, whether free or slave, were not American citizens and could not sue in federal court. The Court also ruled that Congress lacked power to ban slavery in the U.S. territories. -
African Americans: 13th Amendment
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. -
14th Amendment
All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. -
15th Amendment
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. -
African Americans: Plessy v. Ferguson
Louisiana enacted the Separate Car Act, which required separate railway cars for blacks and whites. In 1892, Homer Plessy – who was seven-eighths Caucasian – agreed to participate in a test to challenge the Act. He was solicited by the Comite des Citoyens (Committee of Citizens), a group of New Orleans residents who sought to repeal the Act. They asked Plessy, who was technically black under Louisiana law, to sit in a "whites only" car of a Louisiana train. -
Founding of the NAACP
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as a bi-racial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E. B. Du Bois, Mary White Ovington and Moorfield Storey -
Women: 19th Amendment
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 sex. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. -
Women: ERA introduced into Congress
The amendment was introduced in Congress for the first time in 1921 and has prompted conversations about the meaning of legal equality for women and men ever since. ... Congress had originally set a ratification deadline of March 22, 1979, for the state legislatures to consider the ERA. -
African Americans: Smith v. Allwright
In 1923, the Texas Democratic Party required all voters in its primary to be white based on a state law authorizing the party to establish its own internal rules. Lonnie E. Smith, a black dentist a voter in Harris County, Texas, sued county election official S. S. Allwright for the right to vote in the primary. -
Truman Orders The Desegregation of Armed Forces
Executive Order 9981 is an executive order issued on July 26, 1948, by President Harry S. Truman. It abolished discrimination "on the basis of race, color, religion or national origin" in the United States Armed Forces. The executive order eventually led to the end of segregation in the services. -
Hispanic Americans: Hernandez v. Texas
In 1954, the United States Supreme Court extended constitutional rights to Mexican Americans in the landmark civil rights case Hernandez v. Texas.... In 1950, Pete Hernandez was charged with murder and found guilty by an all-white jury in Jackson County, Texas. -
African v. Board of Education
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that American state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segregated schools are otherwise equal in quality. -
Little Rock Nine
The Little Rock Nine was a group of nine African American students enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in 1957. Their enrollment was followed by the Little Rock Crisis, in which the students were initially prevented from entering the racially segregated school by Orval Faubus, the Governor of Arkansas. -
African Americans: 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 of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is a landmark civil rights and U.S. labor law in the United States that outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. -
Women: Civil Rights and Women's Equality in Employment Act
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin;... Sections 501 and 505 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended, that prohibit employment discrimination against Federal employees with disabilities. -
Hispanic Americans: Cesar Chavez publicizes the fight of migrant wokers
The 31 years Cesar Chavez led the United Farm Workers of America saw its share of defeats, but also historic victories. Under Cesar, the UFW achieved unprecedented gains for farm workers. Among them were: The first genuine collective bargaining agreements between farm workers and growers in American history. -
Voting Rights Act of 1965
signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson, aimed to overcome legal barriers at the state and local levels that prevented African Americans from exercising their right to vote as guaranteed under the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. -
Women: National Organization of Women
The National Organization for Women is an American feminist organization founded in 1966. The organization consists of 550 chapters in all 50 U.S. states and in Washington, D.C. -
Hispanic Americans: Founding of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF)
The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund is a national non-profit civil rights organization formed in 1968 to protect the rights of Latinos in the United States. -
African Americans: Jones v. Mayer
Jones, a black man, charged that a real estate company in Missouri's St. Louis County refused to sell him a home in a particular neighborhood on account of his race. -
Sexual Orientation: Stonewall Riots
The Stonewall riots were a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations by members of the gay community against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. -
Women: Reed v. Reed
Reed v. Reed, 404 U.S. 71, was an Equal Protection case in the United States in which the Supreme Court ruled that the administrators of estates cannot be named in a way that discriminates between sexes. -
Women: ERA passed by Congress
First proposed by the National Woman's political party in 1923, the Equal Rights Amendment was to provide for the legal equality of the sexes and prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex. -
Women: Congress opens all military service academies to women
In 1980, the first women graduated from the service academies as a result of Public Law 94-106 signed by President Gerald Ford on Oct. 7, 1975. The law passed the House by a vote of 303 to 96 and the Senate by voice vote after divisive argument within Congress, resistance from the Department of Defense and legal action initiated by women to challenge their exclusion. -
Women: Craig v. Boren
An Oklahoma law prohibited the sale of "nonintoxicating" 3.2 percent beer to males under the age of 21 and to females under the age of 18. Curtis Craig, a male then between the ages of 18 and 21, and Carolyn Whitener, a licensed vendor challenged the law as discriminatory. -
Women: Dothard v. Rawlinson
Dianne Rawlinson applied to be a prison guard with the Alabama Department of Corrections. The Department had a minimum height and weight requirement of 120 pounds and 5 feet 2 inches. Rawlinson did not meet the minimum weight requirement, so the Department refused to hire her. Rawlinson sued on behalf of herself and all similarly-situated women under Title VII, alleging sex discrimination. -
Women: Title IX
Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972 is a federal law that states: "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance." -
Hispanic Americans: Plyer v. Doe
Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202 (1982), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States struck down both a state statute denying funding for education to undocumented immigrant children in the United States and a municipal school district's attempt to charge an annual $1,000 tuition fee for each student to compensate for lost state funding. -
Sexual Orientation: "Don't Ask Don't Tell
"Don't ask, don't tell" (DADT) was the official United States policy on military service by gays, bisexuals, and lesbians, instituted by the Clinton Administration on February 28, 1994, when Department of Defense Directive 1304.26 issued on December 21, 1993, took effect, lasting until September 20, 2011. -
Sexual Orientation: Defense of Marriage Act
The Defense of Marriage Act was a United States federal law that, prior to being ruled unconstitutional, defined marriage for federal purposes as the union of one man and one woman, and allowed states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages granted under the laws of other states. -
Sexual Orientation: Massachusetts legalizes same sex marriage
Same-sex marriage has been legally recognized in the U.S state of Massachusetts since May 17, 2004, as a result of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) ruling in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health that it was unconstitutional under the Massachusetts Constitution to allow only opposite-sex couples to marry -
Hispanic Americans: Multi-member electoral districts in Texas outlawed
Cumulative voting represents an alternative to the single-member district form of representation that characterizes government on all levels in Texas and the United States. ... However, voters can use all their votes on a single candidate or distribute their votes among the contenders for several seats. -
Sexual Orientation: United States v. Windsor
On November 9, 2010 Windsor filed suit in district court seeking a declaration that the Defense of Marriage Act was unconstitutional. At the time the suit was filed, the government's position was that DOMA must be defended. -
Sexual Orientation: Obergefell v. Hodges
Groups of same-sex couples sued their relevant state agencies in Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky, and Tennessee to challenge the constitutionality of those states' bans on same-sex marriage or refusal to recognize legal same-sex marriages that occurred in jurisdictions that provided for such marriages. The plaintiffs in each case argued that the states' statutes violated the Equal Protection Clause and Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. -
Sexual Orientation: Masterpeice Cakeshop v. Colorado
In July 2012, Charlie Craig and David Mullins went to Masterpiece Cakeshop in Lakewood, CO, and requested that its owner, Jack C. Phillips, design and create a cake for their wedding. Phillips declined to do so on the grounds that he does not create wedding cakes for same-sex weddings because of his religious beliefs. Phillips believes that decorating cakes is a form of art through which he can honor God and that it would displease God to create cakes for same-sex marriages.
