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Dred Scott v. Sandford
In the ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court stated that enslaved people were not citizens of the United States. They established that enslaved people had no rights in federal court. This sent the North and the South into a deeper divide as it angered the abolitionists. -
13th Amendment
The 13th Amendment abolished slavery in the United States. The Amendment was passed at the end of the Civil War before the Southern states had been restored to the Union. This was used as a war tactic and as a way to get it easily passed through congress. -
14th Amendment
The Fourteenth Amendment officially abolished slavery. It granted citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States, including former enslaved people. It also guaranteed all citizens equal protection of the laws. -
15th Amendment
The 15th Amendment guaranteed African-American men the right to vote. The right to vote could no longer be denied to anyone in the future based on a person’s race. But, state governments found ways to weaken the amendment to prevent African Americans from voting. -
Poll Taxes
The poll tax exemplified Jim Crow laws, developed in the post-Reconstruction South. This aimed to disenfranchise black voters and institute segregation. Eligible voters were required to pay their poll tax before they could cast a ballot. -
Plessy v. Ferguson
The U.S. Supreme Court case ruled that separate but equal facilities were constitutional. This decision upheld the principle of racial segregation. The ruling provided legal justification for segregation on trains and buses, and in public facilities such as hotels, theaters, and schools. -
19th Amendment
The 19th Amendment granted American women the right to vote. Beginning in the mid-19th century, several generations of woman suffrage supporters lectured, wrote, marched, lobbied, and practiced civil disobedience to achieve a change of the Constitution. The suffrage movement began in the early 1800s. -
White Primaries
To exclude minorities from the political system, Texas, Georgia and some other states established white primaries, a system that permitted only whites to vote in the primaries. White primaries were declared an unconstitutional restriction of the right to vote by the Supreme Court in 1944. -
Brown v. Board of Education
The Supreme Court ruled that separating children in public schools on the basis of race was unconstitutional. It overruled the separate but equal principle set in the Plessy v. Ferguson case. It ended racial segregation in the schools in the United States. -
24th Amendment
The House passed the 24th Amendment, outlawing the poll tax as a voting requirement in federal elections. This was due to five states maintaining poll taxes which disproportionately affected African-American voters. The poll tax aimed to disenfranchise black voters and institute segregation. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
This Act banned employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. It prohibited discrimination in public accommodations and federally funded programs. African Americans and other minorities could no longer be denied service based on the color of their skin. -
Voting Rights Act of 1965
This Act was implemented to enforce the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution. The act banned literacy tests for voters and gave the US attorney general and the Department of Justice the right to investigate uses of poll taxes. This resulted in an immediate increase in the number of Black Americans who were able to vote. -
Affirmative Action
Affirmative action was developed to address racial inequality and racial exclusion in American society. Then affirmative action went to the United States Supreme Court where the intention was to make a diverse student body. Which now applies to college admissions. -
Reed v. Reed
This case was first time that the Court applied the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to strike down a law that discriminated against women. This allowed other women and men to successfully challenge discriminatory laws under the Equal Protection Clause and government laws and practices. -
Equal Rights Amendment
The Equal Rights Amendment provides legal equality of the sexes and prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex. Its purpose is to end the legal distinctions between men and women in terms of divorce, property, and employment. -
Regents of the University of California v. Bakke
This Supreme Court case held that a university's admissions criteria that used race as a basis for an admission decision violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. They ruled that a state may consider race as a factor in admissions to promote diversity, but only if considered alongside other factors. -
Bowers v. Hardwick
This case found that the Fourteenth Amendment does not prevent a state from criminalizing private sexual conduct involving same-sex couples. They ruled that the right for gay people to engage in sodomy was not protected by the Constitution, that the Georgia law against homosexuals was legal, and that the charges against Hardwick would stand. -
Americans with Disabilities Act
This Act prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in employment, transportation, public accommodations, communications and access to state and local government' programs and services. The purpose of this Act is to make sure that people with disabilities have the same rights and opportunities as everyone else. -
Motor Voter Act
This act requires that States offer voter registration opportunities at State motor vehicle agencies, offer voter registration opportunities by mail-in application, offer voter registration opportunities at certain State and local offices, and requires States to implement procedures to maintain accurate and current voter registration lists.
It was passed by congress to make it easier for Americans to register to vote. -
Lawrence v. Texas
This case invalidated the sodomy law across the United States, making same-sex sexual activity legal. It ruled that state laws banning homosexual sodomy are unconstitutional as a violation of the right to privacy. -
Obergefell v. Hodges
The Supreme Court ruled that all same-sex couples are guaranteed the right to marry, which extended legal marriage recognition to same-sex couples throughout the United States. The right to marry is guaranteed to same sex couples by the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause.