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13th Amendment
- Officially outlaws slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment as a crime
- Blacks and other minorities no longer have to worry about being forced or sold into slavery
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14th Amendment
- Provides broad definition of citizenship that overrules the Dred Scott v. Sandford ruling (held that blacks could not be US citizens)
- Prohibits state and local governments from depriving life, liberty, or property without certain steps being taken to ensure fairness (makes most of the Bill of Rights applicable to the states) and to recognize substantive and procedural rights.
- Requires each state to provide equal protection under the law to all people within its jurisdiction
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15th Amendment
- Gives every citizen in the United States the right to vote no matter their "race, color, or previous condition of servitude" (like slavery).
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Plessy v. Ferguson
- legal case debated in the US Supreme Court where it ruled that separation of races in public accommodations was legal and did not violate the 14th Amendment.
- doctrine of "seperate but equal"
- this limited the "full freedoms" that were supposedly guaranteed by the country
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19th Amendment
- Voting is opened to both genders of American citizens
- Women finally get the right to vote!
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Executive Order of 9981
- abolishes racial segregation in the armed forces
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Brown v. Board of Education
- declares states laws establishing seperate public schools for black and white children unconstitutional
- overturns the Plessy v. Ferguson therefore taking away the restrictions on civil rights P v. F created
- integrates schools so that all children have the same civil rights
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Montgomery Bus Boycott
- boycott in Mongomery, Alabama that caused financial deficit for Mongomery's public transit system
- leads to a federal ruling taking into effect (Browder v. Gayle) which declares segregation on buses unconstitutional
- segregation on buses becomes illegal thus giving more deserved social rights to blacks and minorities
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Rosa Parks Refuses to Give Up Seat
- refused to give up seat for a white man
- arrested
- led to desegregation of Montgommery
- bus boycotts begin by MLK
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Civil Rights Act of 1957
- a voting rights measure that was the first civil rights legislation since Reconstruction following the American Civil War
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24th Amendment
- prohibits both Congress and states to use their power to make African Americans pay poll taxes in order to vote (often successful in preventing blacks from voting)
- African Americans now can vote with equal requirements as the whites
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Civil Rights Act of 1964
- a law that banned discrimination on the basis of race, sex, national origin, or religion in public places and most workplaces
- gave all citizens the right to enter libraries, parks, washrooms, resaurants, theaters, and other public accomodations
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Voting Rights Act of 1965
- outlawed discriminatory requirements and prerequesites for voting (especially literacy tests aimed at African Americans who were deprived of education in the south)
- enforces the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States
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Civil Rights Act of 1968
- a law that banned discrimination in housing
- along with the end of segregation in schools, African American attendance in colleges increased thus leading to better jobs and business opportunities for them
