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13th Amendment
The 13th amendment states that no slavery shall exists in the United States and finally abolished slavery all together. This came in 1865 in the aftermath of the Civil War. It meant that all African Americans were now freed, even in the south. -
14th Amendment
The 14th amendment states that all people born or naturalized in the United States are US citizens. This included the freed slaves and African Americans and worked towards giving them their rights back. It also gave everyone “equal protection of the laws” -
15th Amendment
The 15th amendment gave African American men the right to vote. This did not make it easy for them to vote though because the south was still very racist and they made it difficult for them to register. -
Dred Scott v Stanford
Dred Scott was a slave living in Missouri which was a slave state before moving to Illinois which was a free state. His owner brought him back to Missouri to continue working:, however, he believed that since he had been taken out of Missouri and lived in a free state that he should no longer have to be a slave. He filed for wrongful enslavement and it ended up in the Supreme Court where they ruled he was not free because no African American had the right to sue in federal court. -
White Primaries
The white primaries were aimed to disenfranchise African Americans and other minority voters. It was used by the white democrats to try to control the African Americans in order to keep them from voting. They used poll taxes and literacy tests to make it even harder as well. This left minorities with very little political control in the south. -
Plessy v. Ferguson
This landmark Supreme Court case is remembered by the words “separate but equal”. Now seen as a very controversial decision, which was eventually overturned, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Ferguson. They said that segregation was constitutional, as long as the different facilities for each race were equal in quality. -
19th Amendment
The 19th amendment gave women the right to vote. This meant that all United States citizens now had the right to vote and could not be denied. This ended almost a century of protests for women's suffrage. -
Brown v. Board of Education
Brown v. The Board of Education was another landmark case in the history of the Supreme Court. In this case, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Brown, saying that segregation in public schools is unconstitutional, regardless of if there are equal facilities for both races. This was a huge victory for African Americans during the Civil RIghts movement, as it showed that they were equal to whites, and could not be discriminated against. -
24th Amendment
The 24th amendment made it illegal to have a poll tax to vote. Poll taxes were used to try to keep African Americans from voting in the south during the Jim Crow Era. The tax made it hard for most people other than property owning white men from voting -
Poll Taxes
Poll taxes are taxes people had to pay if they wanted to vote. They were put in place mainly to keep African Americans from voting because only white men were able to afford them. It was a very racist tax so the 24th amendment was passed which made it illegal to instill a poll tax for voters. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 ended segregation in all public places based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. It also banned employment discrimination for the same reasons. Jim Crow laws made it difficult for anyone except for white men to have rights in society so this act moved to fix that. It gave equal rights to African Americans who were still being discriminated against everywhere they went. -
Voting Rights Act of 1965
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 worked to give African American men the right to vote without having to deal with the racist test. In the south it was still very hard for them to vote with the literacy tests so this made it so that there was federal oversight of voter registration in the places where it was hard for them to register. -
Affirmative Action
Affirmative Action is a set of policies and guidelines to try and prevent discrimination in the United States. These were put into place to protect historically excluded groups such as racial minorities, as well as women. These government-mandated guidelines are in effect for the workplace, and universities across the U.S. -
Equal Rights Amendment
The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was proposed by the National Women’s political party in 1923. It took nearly forty years to finally be passed by Congress. It was passed to prohibit discrimination by sex. However, due to backlash, thirty-eight states never actually put the law into effect. Later, the Federal Government passed multiple legislative laws to ensure the rights of women. -
Reed v. Reed
After the death of their son, separated parents Cecil and Sally Reed fought for the rights to his estate. In Idaho, their law stated that “men must be preferred to females” in appointing administrators of estates, so Cecil won. Sally fought this all the way to the Supreme Court, who ruled in favor of Sally, saying that Idaho’s code was in violation of the Equal Rights Amendment. This proved to women across the country that they were finally being recognized equal to men. -
Regents of the University of California v. Bakke
After Allan Bakke was rejected from The University of California Medical School at Davis twice, he contested this decision. This was due to the fact that he had higher test scores than all sixteen minorities admitted to the program due to Affirmative Action. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Bakke, while still maintaining that decisions for admission based off of race was permissible. -
Bowers v. Hardwick
After a police officer saw him engaging in the act of consensual homosexual sodomy, Michael Hardwick was arrested and charged under the state law of Georgia. After going to the Supreme Court, the court ruled in favor of Bowers, and against Hardwick. They said that each state has the right to prevent the act of sodomy under their own law. This was later overturned. -
Americans with Disabilities Act
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was put into place to protect those with disabilities in many different places, including transportation, public accomodations, communications, and access to government, as well as in the workplace. This bill was a large step in protecting the rights of the disabled, as well as integrating them better in society. -
Lawrence v. Texas
After being arrested for committing a homosexual act in a private residence, John Lawrence and Tyron Garner were arrested. Lawrence contested, and his case made it all the way to the Supreme Court. Overruling their previous decision in Bowers v. Hardwick, they ruled that under the Constitution, the law cannot prevent two people from engaging in a consensual homosexual act. -
Obergefell v. Hodges
In numerous states, many same-sex couples were denied marriage licenses. Believing this infringed on their constitutional rights, they took their case to the Supreme Court. Ruling in favor of Obergefell, the Supreme Court said that under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Constitution protects the liberties of same-sex couples across the U.S. This case required states to recognize all same-sex marriages under law.