Civil Rights Time Line

  • 13th Amendment

    Abolishment of slavery, not including a form of punishment depending on the crime.
  • 15th Amendment

    Focused on the right to vote, based on "race, color, or previous condition of servitude". These characteristics could not keep a citizen from voting.
  • 19th Amendment

    Prohibits the US/states from denying the right to vote to citizens based on sex. (Allowed women to have the right to vote).
  • Dred Scott v. Sandford

    Dred Scott v. Sandford

    African Americans could not sue within federal court and Congress did not have the power to ban slavery on US territory.
  • 14th Amendment

    ratified in 1868, allowed citizenship to all people born in the US, and including former enslaved people. "equal protection of the laws". Occurred during the Reconstruction Era and focused on abolishing slavery(in that time period).
  • Plessy v. Ferguson

    A "landmark decision in the Supreme Court" which became know as "separate but equal". Public facilities needed to be equal in quality if there was segregation.
  • Brown v. Board of Education

    established that laws in schools that resulted in segregation were unconstitutional even if they were equal in quality.
  • Civil Rights Act of 1964

    prohibited discrimination, focusing on race, color, religion, sex, and origin. This is "a landmark civil rights and labor law". This law mainly included hiring, firing, and promotions in the work place(no discrimination within these actions).
  • Voting Rights Act of 1965

    Prohibits racial discrimination in voting, it was adopted and carried through southern states following after the Civil War. This included literacy tests as a "pre-voting" requirement.
  • Reed v. Reed

    US Supreme court ruled that administrators of estates could not include names that discriminate based on sex/between sexes. Eliminated further discrimination between men and women.
  • Title IX

    This is a federal civil rights law, it is a part of the Education Amendments of 1972. It prevents discrimination in a school environment and within the education system.
  • Regents of the University of California v. Bakke

    Universities use of racial quotas was confirmed unconstitutional yet "affirmative action".
  • Americans with Disabilities Act

    law focused on prohibiting discrimination of citizens with disabilities. This includes employment, location/transportation, public accommodations, and access to government buildings.
  • Obergefell v. Hodges

    Supreme court ruled that the right to marry is guaranteed to same-sex couples by both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause.

Looking for a timeline maker?

Create timelines for projects, roadmaps, history, lessons, legal cases, and stories with Timetoast. Timetoast is a timeline maker for work, school, research, and stories.