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Shelley v. Kraemer
Shelley v. Kraemer (1948) is a U.S. Supreme Court case that held that restrictive covenants in real property deeds which prohibited the sale of the property to non-Caucasians unconstitutionally violate the equal protection provision of the Fourteenth Amendment. -
14th Amendment
The Fourteenth Amendment is an amendment to the United States Constitution that was adopted in 1868. It granted citizenship and equal civil and legal rights to African Americans and enslaved people who had been emancipated after the American Civil War. -
15th Amendment
The 15th amendment prohibits the federal government from denying a citizen the right to vote based on that citizen's race, state color, or previous condition of servitude. -
Congress passed the first Civil Rights Act
The Civil Rights Act of 1866 declared all persons born in the United States to be citizens, without distinction of race or color, or previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude. Although President Andrew Johnson vetoed the legislation, that veto was overturned by
Congress. -
First Women’s Suffrage Amendment introduced in Congress (defeated)
In February 1886 the Senate Select Committee on Woman Suffrage favorably reports the Susan B. Anthony Amendment to the full Senate. Nearly a year later, after much prodding by Henry Blair, the Senate holds its first vote on the proposal, which suffers a lopsided defeat. -
Plessy v. Ferguson
Plessy v. Ferguson was a landmark 1896 U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation under the “separate but equal” doctrine. The case stemmed from an 1892 incident in which African American train passenger Homer Plessy refused to sit in a car for Black people. -
NAACP Is Founded
The NAACP or National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was established in 1909 and is America's oldest and largest civil rights organization. It was formed in New York City by white and Black activists, partially in response to the ongoing violence against African Americans around the country. -
19th Amendment
The 19th amendment legally guarantees American women the right to vote. Achieving this milestone required a lengthy and difficult struggle—victory took decades of agitation and protest. -
Brown v. Board of Education
Board of Education of Topeka was a critical 1954 Supreme Court case that ruled racial segregation in public schools as unconstitutional. The case established the notion that the “separate, but equal” doctrine was legalized in Plessy v. -
Rosa Parks
Called "the mother of the civil rights movement," Rosa Parks invigorated the struggle for racial equality when she refused to give up her bus seat to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama. Parks' arrest on December 1, 1955, launched the Montgomery Bus Boycott by 17,000 black citizens. -
Green v. County School Board of New Kent County
County School Board of New Kent County, case in which the U.S. Supreme Court on May 27, 1968, ruled (9–0) that a “freedom-of-choice” provision in a Virginia school board's desegregation plan was unacceptable because there were available alternatives that promised a quicker and more effective conversion to a school. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
In 1964, Congress passed Public Law 88-352. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Provisions of this civil rights act forbade discrimination on the basis of sex, as well as, race in hiring, promoting, and firing. -
NOW formed
NOW was established on June 30, 1966, in Washington, D.C., by people attending the Third National Conference of the Commission on the Status of Women. Among NOW's 28 founders was its first president, Betty Friedan, author of The Feminine Mystique. -
Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, case in which, on April 20, 1971, the Supreme Court of the United States unanimously upheld busing programs that aimed to speed up the racial integration of public schools in the United States. -
Proposition 209 – California
Proposition 209 is a California ballot proposition which, upon approval in November 1996, amended the state constitution to prohibit state governmental institutions from considering race, sex, or ethnicity, specifically in the areas of public employment, public contracting, and public education.
