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Scott v. Sanford
Declared that any African American in the U.S. was not a citizen and could not sue in court or vote or anything a citizen could do. It also said that congress could not ban slavery. -
13th Amendment
Established that slavery was illegal and could not be used as punishment. It angered the south but freed all slaves. The slaves were still treated poorly and received prejudice. -
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Reconstruction
The government made several strides in the right direction to give colored people more rights. It started after the Civil War and they created several amendments in aid of the colored people. -
14th Amendment
Protects the citizen’s right of due process (of the states). It ensured that citizens would get a fair trial and proper education of their rights. No government can make laws that break the citizen's right of due process. -
15th Amendment
Protects citizens right to vote and can not be taken away due to race, color, etc. This was a huge turning point because, before then, colored people were not allowed to vote, even if they were a citizen. -
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Jim Crow Era
Marriages are void if one of the partners is white and the other at least an ⅛ African, Japanese, or Chinese.
White people could sign contracts that prohibited non-servant colored people from being near their covenant
There were different types of black code laws, depending on the state, and Jim Crow Laws were one type
Literacy tests
Nullified the 13th and 14th amendment
Grandfather clause: an order to keep voting rights to white men
*Did not end exactly in 1960 -
Plessy v. Ferguson
*Upheld that "separate but equal" was legal and constitutional.
The African-American Homer Plessy tried to ride on a whites-only train car, and when the authorites of the train attempted to move him to the blacks-only car he refused. -
19th Amendment
*Gave both women and men equal voting rights.
Even the 14th amendment didn't give women voting rights. The idea was introduced in 1778, but was a controversial topic for over 40 years. The work of women in WW1 gave a final push for it to be adopted in 1920. -
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Scottsboro Boys
The Scottsboro Boys were nine African American men (and some young teenagers) who were accused of rape by two white women on a train.The boys went through a rollercoaster of a trial, as they had several trials that resulted in four of them being released on parole. -
George Stinney Case
George Stinney was a fourteen year old African American boy who was arrested and convicted of murdering two white girls. He was found guilty and was the youngest person executed in the United States in the twenty-first century. He was not given his rights or allowed witnesses. His whole trial was a violation of due process. -
Brown v. Board
*Argued that "separate but equal" is not constitutional and violated the 14th amendment.
Separating the blacks and whites made the black population feel inferior and affected their ability to work and learn. They argued that because the students are not able to learn the same as the white children, their equal protection rights in the 14th amendment of the constitution are violated. -
Civil Rights Act (1964)
Black people were given the same rights at whites to fight back against the black code and Jim Crow Law
The government said that if the states didn’t follow through with the anti-discriminatory laws, the government wouldn’t pay for things the states wanted that discriminated against anyone -
Voting Rights Act
Protects people from being denied the right to vote because of prejudice. Outlawed any discriminatory voting practices. Included are literacy tests. It made it much easier for colored people to vote and influence our politics. -
Civil Rights Act (1968)
Focused on housal discrimination. Made it so that people could not be denied housing based on race, national origin, or color. This made it difficult to have strictly all white neighborhoods, incorporating diversity. -
California v. Bakke
Bakke was a white man who was discriminated against. He was denied admission to a medical school that had admitted black students with lower academic credentials. The court ruled in Bakke's favor as the "racial quotas" the university used were unconstitutional. -
Gratz v. Bollinger
The University of Michigan had racially discriminatory ways of admitting more racially diverse students. They would make it harder for white students to get in by admitting almost all of the qualified minorities and fewer white students.The court ruled that is was unconstitutional. -
Meredith v. Jefferson Co Board
The school wanted to integrate more races in their school, so they had a loose system of choosing students, but part of it considered race. The court ruled that it was unconstitutional because it chose students based on race and violated the 14th amendment. -
Shelby v. Holder
Voting Rights Act of 1965
Does the renewal of Section 5 of the Voter Rights Act under the constraints of Section 4(b) exceed Congress' authority under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, and therefore violate the Tenth Amendment and Article Four of the Constitution?
Yes, because Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional and does not apply to modern world voting and causes an unnecessary burden on the states.