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The 13th Amendment was ratified during Reconstruction after the Civil War that officially made slavery illegal in the United States. This significantly changed the lives of African Americans in the United States by freeing slaves, and allowing them to be free to work and live as they please. However, discrimination, especially in the South, made it difficult for African Americans to leave a state of servitude and achieve equality, making the amendment less transformative than many predicted. -
The 15th Amendment gave African Americans the right to vote, which was previously legally denied based solely on the premise of race. However, especially in the South, the impact of the amendment was more minimal, since many states implement new laws to prevent African Americans from voting, such as literacy tests and poll taxes. These laws made the African American voting population negligible in Southern states and allowed for the white elite to regain control in the region. -
A Supreme Court case surrounding the issue of a black man who refused to sit in the black-only section of the train, arguing that the law put in place that separated such facilities were unconstitutional. The Supreme Court rejected this argument and upheld that facilities could be segregated under the doctrine of "separate but equal", which led to a rapid increase in Jim Crow laws throughout the country. -
The 19th Amendment gave women the legal right to vote in America. The amendment gained support after World War 1, where women heavily helped in the war effort, working in factories and a variety of other jobs as men left for war. -
Due to African American contributions in World War 2 and the growth of the Civil Rights movement during the period after World War 2, Truman decided to sign Executive Order 9981, which ordered the desegregation of the armed forces, a mission which took approximately 6 years to complete. -
A Supreme Court case, in which a black man, Oliver Brown, argued against an all-white school barring his daughter from being admitted. Brown argued that black schools were not equal and that the application of "separate but equal" in public schools violated the 14th Amendment. The Supreme Court affirmed in an unanimously sided with Brown, ruling against segregation in schools and the doctrine of "separate but equal". -
A civil rights protest that began due to Montgomery's laws that required black passengers to give up their seat to white passengers, which Rosa Parks refused to comply with, and was subsequently arrested and fined for. This led to a large-scale boycott of Montgomery's bus system by black riders in an effort to change the laws. The boycott ended in 1956 when a federal court in Montgomery ruled that the law violated the 14th Amendment, which was upheld by the U.S Supreme Court. -
Despite African Americans having the right to vote, many states, especially in the South, implemented regulation and laws that made it difficult for blacks to vote, suppressing the black votes in these regions. In response to this, the Civil Rights Act of 1957 gave increased power to the federal government to prosecute such restrictions on voting and created a commission to help find such abuses and protect the rights of African Americans. -
It was a Mexican-American movement that shifted away from the norm of attempting to assimilate into American culture, and instead embraced their Mexican heritage, advocating for more social and political equality. This resulted in the Chicano mural movement, which used murals and art in public places to celebrate Mexican heritage and culture and unite Mexican-Americans. -
The Greensboro sit-ins started when 4 college students in the town of Greensboro, North Carolina refused to leave a segregated lunch counter until they were served. This movement spread throughout the South and more establishments were forced to serve black customers and change their segregation laws to manage the wave of sit-in protestors. -
In response to violent attacks on civil rights' protests in Birmingham, civil rights leaders organized a large protest at the nation's capitol. The purpose of the march was to call for political and economic rights for African Americans and a sense of equality. At the march, Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous "I have a dream" speech, which envisioned a world without the racial boundaries, discrimination, and segregation of the time. -
The 24th Amendment made poll taxes illegal in federal elections, which was an important step for voting rights of African Americans as many such taxes were priced in such a way that a large portion of African Americans were in practice barred from being able to vote. This Amendment gave African Americans larger representation in federal elections. -
This Act was heavily disputed and was a major step forward in civil rights for African Americans. It banned segregation and discrimination based on race, color, sex, or national origin, including for employment. Further, it set up a federal department for the desegregation of schools, and increased power of federal government to prevent voting discrimination. -
Despite the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibited discrimination against African Americans in the voting system, there was still major resistance to African American voting registration. To protest this resistance and the underrepresentation of the black vote, MLK organized a march from Selma to Montgomery, which was met with police resistance and gained national attention, leading to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. -
Chavez was a labor leader, who focused primarily on the struggle of farm workers in America. He founded the United Farm Workers of America Union, which was influential in bettering working conditions and wages on farms, which were oftentimes very difficult. He is also famous for the 1965 Grape Strike he organized against California grape growers, which lasted for 5 years, and evolved further into a national boycott. It ended in 1970 with an agreement that increased wages and allowed for unions. -
The Act's primary purpose was to end voting discrimination against African Americans, especially in the South. The Act banned the use of literacy test, authorized for more federal scrutiny and oversight over African American voting registration, and increased investigative power of the Attorney General and the Department of Justice over the use of poll taxes in local and state elections. -
The Black Panthers are a political group that was founded by Bobby Seale and Huey Newton with the purpose of challenging discrimination and police brutality. They often stood and patrolled areas in order to protect African Americans from brutality. The organization's political ideology was built around their Ten-Point Program, which outlined ideals, such as the end of police brutality and African American employment. -
In 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Thurgood Marshall to the Supreme Court, which made him the first African American to sit on the Court. His nomination was highly contentious; nevertheless, he was approved 69 to 11. He remained a judge on the Court for 24 years, where he made many significant decisions, challenging discrimination based on race and sex, and helping uphold affirmative action. -
King was in Memphis to support a sanitation workers' strike, where he ended up being shot in the second story balcony of his motel. The killing led to mass outrage, especially among black Americans, with protests and riots erupting around the country as a result of King's death. In the long term, the death of King symbolized for many the need for more radical change, and partly led to the rise of the Black Panther movement in the 1970s. -
In 1981, Ronald Reagan nominated Sandra Day O' Conner to the Supreme Court, making her the first female on the Supreme Court. She was further unanimously approved by the Senate. She was known as a moderate conservative, who often dissented from the conservative faction, especially on social issues, such as upholding abortion rights in the Court.