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Civil Rights Timeline
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13th Amendment
The 13th Amendment abolished slavery and involutary servitude, except as punishment for a crime in the United States. -
14th Amendment
The 14th Amendment granted citizenship to "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, " which included fromer slaves recently freed. -
15th Amendment
The 15th Amendment 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 or by any states on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." -
Plessey v. Ferguson
The state of Louisiana enacted a law that required separate railway cars for blacks and whites. In 1892, Homer Adolph Plessy- who was seven-eighths Caucasian-took a seat in a "white only" car of a Louisiana train. He refused to move from the car reserved for blacks and was arrested. -
Mendez v. Westminster
When Mendez's children were told that they were going to attend the Hoover School, which was located in a different school district, and furthermore, all of the students there were Mexican or Mexican-American. Gonzalo discovered that other school districts in Orange County also segregated their Mexican-American students. On March 2, 1945, the attorney representing Mendez and the other plaintiffs filed a class action suit in a U.S. District Court. -
Delgado v. Bastrop ISD
In 1948, with the support of LULAC and the legal assistance of Gus Garcia, Minerva Delgado and 20 other parents of Mexican American children filed suit in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas challenging the segregation of their children in five Texas public school districts. Thus began the case of Delgado, et. al. v. Bastrop Independent School District. -
Executive Order 9981
Executive Order 9981 is an executive order issued by President Harry S. Truman. It abolished racial discrimination in the United States Armed Forces and eventually led to the end of segregation in the services. -
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. The Court held that the Equal Protection Clause required that Sweatt be admitted to the university. -
Hernandez v. Texas
In 1951, Pete Hernandez, a 21-year-old, single, Mexican-American cotton picker, shot Joe Espinosa. In September 1951, he was indicted for murder. Hernandez’s lawyers moved to quash the indictment and the jury panel. They argued that persons of Mexican descent had been systematically excluded from serving as jury commissioners, grand jurors, and petit jurors even though there were such persons living in Jackson County who were fully qualified to serve. He was later found guilty by an all Anglo ju -
Brown v. Board of Education
The Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, maintained segregated elementary schools, but other schools in the district were not segregated. Linda Brown, an African American third grader, and her family lived in Topeka, and there was an elementary school just five blocks from their home. However, that school was reserved for white children only.In 1951, Linda’s parents joined with the parents of some other African American children and brought suit against the Topeka Board of Education. -
Civil Right Act of 1957
The Civil Rights Act of 1957 increased protection of voting rights and laid the foundation for federal enforcement of civil rights law by creating the Civil Rights Division in the Department of Justice. -
24th Amendment
The 24th Amendment prohibited any poll tax in all federal elections. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 ended segregation in public places and banned employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin, is considered one of the crowning legislative achievements of the civil rights movement. -
Voting Rights Act of 1965
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 outlawed the discriminatory voting practices adopted in many southern states after the Civil War, including literacy tests as a prerequisite to voting. -
Edgewood v. Kirby
In Edgewood Independent School District et al. v. Kirby et al., a landmark case concerning public school finance, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund filed suit against commissioner of education William Kirby on May 23, 1984, in Travis County on behalf of the Edgewood Independent School District, San Antonio, citing discrimination against students in poor school districts.
