Civil Rights Timeline

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  • 3/5 compromise

    3/5 compromise
    The Three-Fifths Compromise was a compromise reached among state delegates during the 1787 United States Constitutional Convention. Whether, and if so, how, slaves would be counted when determining a state's total population for legislative representation and taxing purposes was important, as this population number would then be used to determine the number of seats that the state would have in the United States House of Representatives for the next ten years.
  • Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions is signed

    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

    Scott v Sandford
    Dred Scott v. John F.A. Sandford, legal case in which the U.S. Supreme Court on March 6, 1857, ruled (7–2) that a slave who had resided in a free state and territory was not thereby entitled to his freedom; that African Americans were not and could never be citizens of the United States; and that the Missouri Compromise, which had declared free all territories west of Missouri, was unconstitutional.The decision added fuel to the sectional controversy and pushed the country closer to civil war.
  • 13th amendment

    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

    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

    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.
  • Plessy v Ferguson

    Plessy v Ferguson
    Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court issued in 1896. It upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation laws for public facilities as long as the segregated facilities were equal in quality – a doctrine that came to be known as "separate but equal".
  • Founding of the NAACP

    Founding of the NAACP
    NAACP is a civil rights organization in the US
  • 19th amendment

    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.
  • ERA introduced into congress

    ERA introduced into congress
    The Equal Rights Amendment is a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution in the 1970s and 1980s. It would give men and women full equality under the law. Alice Paul first wrote the ERA. In 1923, it was introduced in the Congress for the first time.
  • Multi-member electoral districts in Texas outlawed

    Multi-member electoral districts in Texas outlawed
    Since 1842, federal law has prohibited multi-member districts for Congress, but many local legislatures still elect several representatives from a single district. ... The third rule of note is the "floterial" district: a district that wholly or partially overlaps other districts in the same legislative chamber.
  • Smith v Allwright

    Smith v Allwright
    Smith v. Allwright, 321 U.S. 649, was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court with regard to voting rights and, by extension, racial desegregation. It overturned the Texas state law that authorized the Democratic Party to set its internal rules, including the use of white primaries.
  • Truman orders the desegregation of armed forces

    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.
  • Hernandez v Texas

    Hernandez v Texas
    Hernandez v. Texas, 347 U.S. 475, was a landmark case, "the first and only Mexican-American civil-rights case heard and decided by the United States Supreme Court during the post-World War II period."
  • Brown v Board of Education

    Brown v Board of Education
    On May 17, 1954, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren delivered the unanimous ruling in the landmark civil rights case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. State-sanctioned segregation of public schools was a violation of the 14th amendment and was therefore unconstitutional.
  • Little Rock Nine

    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.
  • Civil Rights and Women's Equity in Employment Act

    Civil Rights and Women's Equity in Employment Act
    Image result for Civil Rights and Women's Equity 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.
  • 24th Amendment

    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

    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.
  • Voting Rights Act of 1965

    Voting Rights Act of 1965
    The 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.
  • National Organization of Women organized

    National Organization of Women organized
    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.
  • Jones v Mayer

    Jones v Mayer
    Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co., 392 U.S. 409, is a landmark United States Supreme Court case, which held that Congress could regulate the sale of private property to prevent racial discrimination
  • Founding of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund

    Founding of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund
    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.
  • Stonewall Riots

    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.
  • Reed v Reed

    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.
  • Title IX

    Title IX
    Title IX is a federal civil rights law in the United States of America that was passed as part of the Education Amendments of 1972. This is Public Law No. 92‑318, 86 Stat. 235, codified at 20 U.S.C. §§ 1681–1688.
  • ERA passed by congress

    ERA passed by congress
    On March 22, 1972, the Equal Rights Amendment is passed by the U.S. Senate and sent to the states for ratification. 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.
  • Congress opens military service academies to women

    Congress opens military service academies to women
    Military Women - The Military Service Academies. It literally took an act of Congress to open the United States Military Academies to women. In 1975, then President Ford, signed Public Law 94-106 requiring the services to open the hallowed halls of West Point, Annapolis, and the Air Force Academy to women.
  • Craig v Boren

    Craig v Boren
    Craig v. Boren, 429 U.S. 190, was the first case in which a majority of the United States Supreme Court determined that statutory or administrative sex classifications were subject to intermediate scrutiny under the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause.
  • Dothard v Rawlinson

    Dothard v Rawlinson
    Dothard v. Rawlinson, 433 U.S. 321, was the first United States Supreme Court case which the bona fide occupational qualifications defense was used.
  • Plyler v Doe

    Plyler v Doe
    Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202, 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.
  • Massachusetts legalized same-sex marrage

    Massachusetts legalized same-sex marrage
    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.
  • Don't Ask Don't Tell

    Don't Ask Don't Tell
    "Don't ask, don't tell" 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.
  • US v Windsor

    US v Windsor
    United States v. Windsor, 570 U.S. 744 (2013), is a landmark civil rights case[1][2][3] in which the United States Supreme Court held that restricting U.S. federal interpretation of "marriage" and "spouse" to apply only to opposite-sex unions, by Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), is unconstitutional under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.
  • Obergefell v Hodges

    Obergefell v Hodges
    Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U.S. ___, is a landmark civil rights case in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the fundamental right to marry is guaranteed to same-sex couples by both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
  • Cesar Chavez publicizes the plight of migrant workers

    Cesar Chavez publicizes the plight of migrant workers
    Half a century ago this summer, labor activist Cesar Chavez joined thousands of striking farmworkers in Texas as they converged on Austin, the state capital, to demand fair wages and humane working conditions.
  • Masterpiece Cakeshop v Colorado

    Masterpiece Cakeshop v Colorado
    Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado, was a case in the Supreme Court of the United States that dealt with whether owners of public accommodations can refuse certain services based on the First Amendment claims of free speech and free exercise of religion, and therefore be granted an exemption from laws ensuring non-discrimination in public accommodation in particular, by refusing to provide creative services, such as a wedding cake for a gay couple, on the basis of the owner's religious beliefs.
  • Defense of Marriage Act

    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.