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Emancipation Proclamation
This was an executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, during the American Civil War using his war powers. It proclaimed the freedom of slaves in the ten states then in rebellion, thus applying to 3.1 million of the 4 million slaves in the U.S. at that time. The Proclamation immediately freed 50,000 slaves, with nearly all the rest (of the 3.1 million) freed as Union armies advanced. -
13th Ammendment
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitiude, except as a punishment for a crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United states, or any other place to subject jurisdiction. This ammendment abolishes slavery all across the United States. It was passed on January 31st, 1865. -
14th Amendment
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States, and of the state wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the priveleges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive an person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. -
15th Amendment
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. The 15th Amendment was ratified on February 3rd, 1870. -
19th Amendment
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex. The Constitution allows the states to determine the qualifications for voting, and until the 1910s most states disenfranchised women. The 19th Amendment was unsuccessfully challenged in 1922. -
Smith v. Allwright
Smith v. Allwright , 1949, was a very important decision of the United States Supreme Court with regard to voting rights and, by extension, racial desegregation. It overturned the Democratic Party's use of all-white primaries in Texas, and other states where the party used the rule. -
Brown vs. Board of Education
The supreme court case that helped overturn school segregration between whites and blacks. The case was called Brown vs. The board of education of Topeaka, Kansas. By selecting a case from outside the south, the court hoped to emphasize that the question of school segregration was a national one. On May 17th, 1954, Chief Justice Warren delivered a verdict that was against segregration in schools. This was a unanimous decision by the court. -
Montgomery Bus Boycott
Sparked by the arrest of Rosa Parks on 1 December 1955, the Montgomery bus boycott was a 13-month protest that ended with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that segregation on public buses is unconstitutional. The Montgomery Improvement Association coordinated the boycott, and its president, Martin Luther King, Jr., became a prominent civil rights leader as international attention focused on Montgomery. -
Civil Rights Act 1957
It was primarily a voting rights bill, and was the first civil rights legislation enacted by Congress in the United States since Reconstruction following the American Civil War. Following the historic US Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, which eventually led to the integration of public schools, Southern whites in Virginia began a "Massive Resistance". -
Greensboro and Nashville Sit ins
A sereis of non violent protests which led to Woolworths department store chain department store chain reversing its policy of racial segregation in the Southern United States. The sit in movemnet used the strategy of non violent resistance. Dating as far back as 1942 the Congress of Racial Equality who sponsered sit ins in Chicago. -
Sunday School Bombing
The September 15, 1963 racially motivated bombing of Birmingham's Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, which resulted in the death of four innocent black girls, was the nadir of the Civil Rights movement in Birmingham and perhaps one of the darkest days in Birmingham's history. City authorities, never sympathetic to blacks, did very little to bring the bombers to justice. Not until 1977 was one of the bombers convicted. -
19th Amendment
The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tac or other tax. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
This act was a landmark piece of legislation in the United States that outlawed major forms of discrimination against African Americans and women, including racial segregation. It ended unequal application of voter registration requirements and racial segregation in schools, at the workplace and by facilities that served the general public accommodations. -
March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
Roughly 250,000 people marched through Washington, D.C., on Aug. 28, 1963. Called "The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom," the event called the nation's attention to the injustice and inequalities that black Americans faced because of the color of their skin. -
Plessy v. Ferguson
Plessy v. Ferguson, 1896, is a landmark United States Supreme Court decision in the jurisprudence of the United States, upholding the constitutionality of state laws requiring racial segregation in public facilities under the doctrine of "separate but equal." -
Civil Rights Act of 1968
It was also known as the Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968. It was a landmark piece of legislation in the United States that provided for equal housing opportunities regardless of race, creed, or national origin. The Act was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson, who had previously signed the landmark Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act into law. -
Voting Rights Act 1965
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a landmark piece of national legislation in the United States that outlawed discriminatory voting practices that had been responsible for the widespread disenfranchisement of African Americans in the U.S.
