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Dred Scott v. Sandford
Ruled that African Americans, whether they were free or slaves, were not citizens, and they had no right to sue. This overturned the Supreme Court Decision in the Missouri Compromise of 1820, and was an event which lead to the Civil War. -
13th Amendment
Abolished slavery and involuntary servitude. Although the amendment declared that slavery was illegal, things such as the Black Codes forced African Americans into involuntary servitude. This was part of the Reconstruction era where the South was broken into districts and controlled by the federal government in order to ensure civility and obedience to the law. -
14th Amendment
This is also one of the Reconstruction amendments. It granted slaves citizenship, and it guaranteed them equal protection under the law. This is also known as the amendment that incorporated the Bill of Rights to the states. -
15th Amendment
The 15th Amendment was one of the Reconstruction Amendments, and it prohibited states from denying the right to vote to African Americans. However, many states still used things such as poll taxes and literacy tests to deter African Americans from casting a vote. -
Poll taxes
These were small taxes which were levied on the right to vote. These taxes were often collected during the time where sharecroppers had the least amount of money to prevent them from voting. The twenty-fourth amendment declared that poll taxes were illegal -
White Primaries
This allowed political parties to exclude African Americans from primary elections which took away their voice in the real contests. This was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1944. -
Plessy v. Ferguson
This Supreme Court case upheld the constitutionality of "equal but separate accommodations for the White and colored races". This was later overturned by the 1954 Brown v Board of Education where the Supreme Court ruled that the school systems of blacks and whites were inherently unequal. -
19th Amendment
This amendment prohibited the denial of the right to vote based on sex. It is known as Susan B. Anthony's amendment. Although women were granted the right to vote, their political participation was very low. -
Brown v Board of Education
This Supreme Court case ruled that segregation in schools in Topeka, Kansas were unequal and that it violated the 14th amendment. The Supreme Court ruled that schools should be integrated and even created a busing system and time frame which would integrate schools in a more timely fashion. Some effects of this were increased enrollment of white students in private school and increased racial tension -
24th Amendment
This amendment prohibits both the States and Congress from requiring poll taxes in order to vote in elections. This method of poll taxing was meant to prohibit African Americans from voting because generally, they were the ones who could not afford to pay poll taxes. -
Affirmative Action
The term was coined in the early sixties, however, it was not extremely significant until it appeared in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This was compensatory treatment aimed towards groups that were previously discriminated and/or disadvantaged in the past. It was most apparent with African Americans. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
Forbade discrimination on the basis of race and sex in public accommodations and forbade it when it came to hiring and firing. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was also created on this basis. It was created to make sure that these laws were being enforced. -
Voting Rights Act of 1965
This law was put into place to prohibit "voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure ... to deny or abridge the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color." After this law was enacted, the amount of African American voters raised significantly. -
Reed v. Reed
This was the first time that the court had ever upheld a case about gender discrimination. There was a couple in dispute over their deceased son's land, and the lawyer of the woman argued that by the 14th amendment, there should be equal protection of the law. The Supreme Court ruled that Idaho's law to prefer men under law was unconstitutional. -
Equal Rights Amendment
This amendment states that "equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex." It had public support and passed through both houses of Congress, however, it failed to get all the required number of states to pass it. -
Regents of the University of California v. Bakke
This Supreme Court decisions prohibited colleges from accepting students who were less qualified simply because of their race. It did rule that colleges could consider race when it came to admissions, but it ruled that number quotas were unconstitutional. -
Bowers v. Hardwick
The Supreme Court ruled that the Georgia Sodomy Law which prohibited anal and oral sex between homosexuals was illegal. This was eventually overturned in the Supreme Court's Lawrence vs. Texas decision which says that the intimate conduct is protected by the due process of the 14th amendment. -
The Americans with Disabilities Act
This law prohibits job descrimination against those with disabilities and it requires public facilities and employers to make places more accessible. This is an unfunded mandate which caused much contention. -
Lawrence vs Texas
This Supreme Court Decision overturned the decision in Bowers vs Hardwick. It said that the Georgia Law of Sodomy was unconstitutional because intimate conduct between homosexuals was protected by the due process clause of the 14th amendment. -
Fisher v University of Texas
The Supreme Court remanded the case and stated that had not applied strict scrutiny to the universities admissions program. It did not highlight the issue of whether or not race can be considered in admissions.
