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13th Amendment
The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. The amendment was ratified by the required number of states on December 6, 1865. On December 18, 1865, Secretary of State William H. Seward proclaimed its adoption. It was the first of the three Reconstruction Amendments adopted following the American Civil War. -
14th Amendment
The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments. The amendment addresses citizenship rights and equal protection of the laws, and was proposed in response to issues related to former slaves following the American Civil War. -
15th Amendment
The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits the federal and state governments from denying a citizen the right to vote based on that citizen's "race, color, or previous condition of servitude." It was ratified on February 3, 1870, as the third and last of the Reconstruction Amendments. -
Jim Crow
The Jim Crow laws were racial segregation state and local laws enacted after the Reconstruction period in Southern United States that continued in force until 1965 mandating de jure racial segregation in all public facilities in Southern U.S. states (of the former Confederacy), starting in 1890 with a "separate but equal" status for African Americans. -
Poll Taxes
In the United States, payment of a poll tax was a prerequisite to the registration for voting in a number of states. The tax emerged in some states of the United States in the late 19th century as part of the Jim Crow laws. After the right to vote was extended to all races by the enactment of the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, a number of states enacted poll tax laws as a device for restricting voting rights. -
Literacy Tests
A literacy test, in the context of American political history from the 1890s to the 1960s, refers to state government practices of administering tests to prospective voters purportedly to test their literacy in order to vote. In practice, these tests were intended to disenfranchise African-Americans. For other nations, literacy tests have been a matter of immigration policy. -
Plessy v. Ferguson
Plessy v. Ferguson was a landmark United States Supreme Court decision upholding the constitutionality of state laws requiring racial segregation in public facilities under the doctrine of "separate but equal." -
19th Amendment
The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits any United States citizen from being denied the right to vote on the basis of sex. It was ratified on August 18, 1920. -
Korematsu v. United States
Korematsu v. United States was a landmark United States Supreme Court case concerning the constitutionality of Executive Order 9066, which ordered Japanese Americans into internment camps during World War II regardless of citizenship. -
Sweatt v. Painter
Sweatt v. Painte was a U.S. Supreme Court case that successfully challenged the "separate but equal" doctrine of racial segregation established by the 1896 case Plessy v. Ferguson. The case was influential in the landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education four years later. -
Brown v. Board of Education
Brown v. Board of Education was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students to be unconstitutional. -
Montgomery Bus Boycott
The Montgomery Bus Boycott, a seminal event in the U.S. Civil Rights Movement, was a political and social protest campaign against the policy of racial segregation on the public transit system of Montgomery, Alabama. The campaign lasted from December 1, 1955—when Rosa Parks, an African American woman, was arrested for refusing to surrender her seat to a white person. -
Affirmative Action
Affirmative action or positive discrimination (known as employment equity in Canada, reservation in India and Nepal, and positive action in the UK) is the policy of favoring members of a disadvantaged group who are perceived to suffer from discrimination within a culture. -
24th Amendment
The Twenty-fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits requiring a poll tax for voters in federal elections. When the 24th Amendment was ratified in 1964, five states still retained a poll tax: Virginia, Alabama, Texas, Arkansas, and Mississippi. But it was not until 1966 that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6–3 in Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections that poll taxes for any level of elections were unconstitutional -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is a landmark piece of civil rights legislation in the United States that outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. It ended unequal application of voter registration requirements and racial segregation in schools, at the workplace and by facilities that served the general public. -
Voting Rights Act of 1965
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a landmark piece of federal legislation in the United States that prohibits racial discrimination in voting. It was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson during the height of the American Civil Rights Movement on August 6, 1965, and Congress later amended the Act five times to expand its protections. -
Robert Kennedy Speech in Indianapolis
Robert F. Kennedy's speech on the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. was given on April 4, 1968, in Indianapolis, Indiana. Kennedy, the United States senator from New York, was campaigning to earn the 1968 Democratic presidential nomination when he learned that King had been assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. -
Reed v. Reed
Reed v. Reed was an Equal Protection case in the United States in which the Supreme Court ruled that the administrators of estates cannot be named in a way that discriminates between sexes. -
Regents of the University of Cailfornia v. Bakke
The University is governed by The Regents, which under Article IX, Section 9 of the California Constitution has "full powers of organization and governance" subject only to very specific areas of legislative control. -
Bowers v. Hardwick
Bowers vs. Hardwick Is a United States Supreme Court decision, overturned in 2003 that upheld, in a 5–4 ruling, the constitutionality of a Georgia sodomy law criminalizing oral and anal sex in private between consenting adults when applied to homosexuals. -
Americans with Disabilities Act
The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 is a law that was enacted by the U.S. Congress in 1990. Senator Tom Harkin authored the bill and was its chief sponsor in the Senate. Harkin delivered part of his introduction speech in sign language, saying it was so his deaf brother could understand. -
Lawrence v. Texas
Lawrence vs. Texas is a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court. In the 6–3 ruling the Court struck down the sodomy law in Texas and, by extension, invalidated sodomy laws in 13 other states, making same-sex sexual activity legal in every U.S. state and territory. -
Fisher v. Texas
Fisher v. University of Texas is a United States Supreme Court case concerning the affirmative action admissions policy of the University of Texas at Austin. -
Baskin v. Bogan
On October 6, 2014, the United States Supreme Court denied review of the 7th Circuit's ruling in favor of the freedom to marry. The decision means that the 7th Circuit ruling stands and same-sex couples will be free to marry in Indiana. -
Equal Rights Amendment
The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution designed to guarantee equal rights for women. In 1972, it passed both houses of Congress and went to the state legislatures for ratification.
