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13th Amendment
The 13th amendment declared that “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, expect as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted…” Formally abolishing slavery in the US, the amendment was passed by congress on January 31st 1865. -
14th Amendment
The 14th amendment granted citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the US,” which included former slaves recently freed. In addition, it forbids states from denying any person “life, liberty or property, without due process of law.” -
15th Amendment
The 15th Amendment to the Constitution granted African American men the right to vote by declaring that 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." Through the use of poll taxes, literacy tests and other means, Southern states were able to effectively disenfranchise African Americans. -
Poll Taxes
A poll or head tax is one imposed equally on all adults at the time of voting and is not affected by property ownership or income. The poll tax was used in the South during and after Reconstruction as a means of circumventing the 14th Amendment and denying civil rights to blacks. This form of taxation gradually fell out of favor in the South in the mid-20th century. -
Jim Crow
From the 1880s into the 1960s, a majority of American states enforced segregation through "Jim Crow" laws. From Delaware to California, and from North Dakota to Texas, many states (and cities, too) could impose legal punishments on people for consorting with members of another race. The most common types of laws forbade intermarriage and ordered business owners and public institutions to keep their black and white clientele separated. -
Literacy Tests
A literacy test, in the context of American political history from the 1890s to the 1960s, refers to the government practice of testing the literacy of potential citizens at the federal level, and potential voters at the state level. For other nations it has been a matter of ideal immigration policy. -
Plessy v. Ferguson
On June 7, 1892, 30-year-old Homer Plessy was jailed for sitting in the "White" car of the East Louisiana Railroad. Plessy could easily pass for white but under Louisiana law, he was considered black despite his light complexion and therefore required to sit in the "Colored" car. -
19th Amendment
Ratified on August 18, 1920, the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution granted American women the right to vote—a right known as woman suffrage. At the time the U.S. was founded, its female citizens did not share all of the same rights as men, including the right to vote. -
Koremastu v. United States
Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214 (1944), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case concerning the constitutionality of Executive Order 9066, which ordered Japanese Americans into internment camps during World War II regardless of citizenship. -
Sweatt v. Painter
In 1946, Heman Marion Sweatt, a black man, applied for admission to the University of Texas Law School. State law restricted access to the university to whites, and Sweatt's application was automatically rejected because of his race. When Sweatt asked the state courts to order his admission, the university attempted to provide separate but equal facilities for black law students. -
Brown v. Board of Education
Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students to be unconstitutional. The decision overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896, which allowed state-sponsored segregation, insofar as it applied to public education. -
Montgomery Bus Boycott
The Montgomery Bus Boycott, in which African Americans refused to ride city buses in Montgomery, Alabama, to protest segregated seating, took place from December 5, 1955, to December 20, 1956, and is regarded as the first large-scale demonstration against segregation in the U.S. -
Affirmative Action
Affirmative action or positive discrimination (known as employment equity in Canada, reservation in India, Nepal, and positive action in the UK) is the policy of favoring members of a disadvantaged group who are perceived to suffer from discrimination within a culture. -
24th Amendment
The 24th amendment ended mandatory poll taxes that prevented many African Americans. When the amendment passed, five southern states still had poll taxes. Most Southern States had cumulative poll taxes that required the voter to pay taxes not just from that year but also previous years. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The 1964 Civil Rights Act was a landmark in legislative attempts to improve the quality of life for African Americans and other minority groups. Although civil rights had a long history as a political and legislative issue, the 1960s marked a period of intense activity by the federal government to protect minority rights. The Act did not resolve all problems of discrimination. -
Voting Rights Act of 1965
The legislation, which President Johnson signed into law the next day, outlawed literacy tests and provided for the appointment of Federal examiners (with the power to register qualified citizens to vote) in those jurisdictions that were "covered" according to a formula provided in the statute. -
Kennedy Speech In Indy
Robert F. Kennedy's speech on the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. was given on April 4, 1968, in Indianapolis, Indiana. Kennedy, the United States senator from New York, was campaigning to earn the 1968 Democratic presidential nomination when he learned that King had been assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. Earlier that day Kennedy had spoken at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend and at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. -
Reed v. Reed
Sally and Cecil Reed, a married couple who had separated, were in conflict over which of them to designate as administrator of the estate of their deceased son. Each filed a petition with the Probate Court of Ada County, Idaho, asking to be named. Idaho Code specified that "males must be preferred to females" in appointing administrators of estates and the court appointed Cecil as administrator of the estate, valued at less than $1000. -
Equal Rights Amendment
The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution designed to guarantee equal rights for women. The ERA was originally written by Alice Paul and Crystal Eastman. In 1923, it was introduced in the Congress for the first time. In 1972, it passed both houses of Congress and went to the state legislatures for ratification. -
Regents of the University of California v. Bakke
Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265 (1978) was a landmark decision by the Supreme Court of the United States. It upheld affirmative action, allowing race to be one of several factors in college admission policy. However, the court ruled that specific quotas, such as the 16 out of 100 seats set aside for minority students by the University of California, Davis School of Medicine, were impermissible. -
Bowers v. Hardwick
The Respondent, Hardwick (Respondent), brought suit in a federal district court challenging the constitutionality of a Georgia statute insofar as it criminalized consensual sodomy. The Respondent asserted that he was a practicing homosexual, that the Georgia statute placed him in imminent danger of arrest and that the statute violated his constitutional rights. -
Americans with Disabilities Act
The ADA is a wide-ranging civil rights law that prohibits discrimination based on disability. It affords similar protections against discrimination to Americans with disabilities as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which made discrimination based on race, religion, sex, national origin, and other characteristics illegal. -
Lawrence v. Texas
Lawrence v. Texas is a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court. In the 6–3 ruling, the Court 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 overturned its previous ruling on the same issue in the 1986 case Bowers v. Hardwick, where it upheld a challenged Georgia statute and did not find a constitutional protection of privacy. -
Indiana Gay Rights
Indiana has restricted marriage to male-female couples by statute since 1986. By legislation passed in 1997, it denied recognition to same-sex relationships established in other jurisdictions. A lawsuit challenging the state's refusal to grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples, Baskin v. Bogan, won a favorable ruling from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana on June 25, 2014. -
Fisher v. Texas
Fisher v. University of Texas, 570 U.S. (2013), 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, articulated in Grutter v. Bollinger and Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, to the University's admissions program.
