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Thirteenth Amendment
Formally abolished slavery throughout the United States, making “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude” legal except as punishment for a crime -
Fourteenth Amendment
Granted citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States,” and guaranteed equal protection of the law, laying the groundwork for future civil‑rights claims -
Fifteenth Amendment
Prohibited denying the right to vote based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude, giving the right to vote to African American men -
Plessy v. Ferguson
The Supreme Court upheld “separate but equal” segregation, legally justifying state‑sponsored racial segregation in public facilities until it was overturned in 1954 -
Nineteenth Amendment
Guaranteed that the right to vote “shall not be denied or abridged…on account of sex,” giving women, including African American and Native American women, the constitutional right to vote -
Indian Citizenship Act
Declared that all Native Americans born in the United States were citizens by birth, though many states continued to bar them from voting until later acts and court rulings -
Indian Reorganization Act
Ended allotment of tribal lands and encouraged Native self‑government, a shift from forced assimilation toward recognition of tribal sovereignty -
Mendez v. Westminster
A federal appeals court held that segregating Mexican‑American children in California schools violated the Fourteenth Amendment, paving the way for Brown v. Board of Education -
Brown v. Board of Education
Overturned “separate but equal” in public schools, declaring segregation in public education inherently unequal under the Fourteenth Amendment -
Civil Rights act of 1957
The first civil‑rights law since Reconstruction, it created a federal Civil Rights Division and empowered federal prosecutors to obtain injunctions against interference with the right to vote -
Civil Rights act of 1960
Established federal inspection of local voter registration polls and introduced penalties for anyone obstructing someone’s attempt to register or vote -
24th Amendment
Abolished poll taxes in federal elections, removing a major barrier that Southern states had used to keep Black citizens from voting -
Civil rights act of 1964
Prohibited discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin in employment, public accommodations, and federally funded programs -
Voting rights act of 1965
Banned literacy tests and other devices used to disqualify minority voters, and provided for federal oversight of voter registration in jurisdictions with a history of discrimination -
Civil Rights Act of 1968
Outlawed discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of housing based on race, religion, national origin, and later gender and disability -
Bilingual Education Act
Provided federal grants to school districts for programs serving students with limited English proficiency first recognizing the need for native‑language instruction in U.S. schools -
Voting Rights Act Amendments
Extended the 1965 Act for five years and lowered the voting age in state and local elections from 21 to 18 for all races -
Voting Rights Act Reauthorization
Added special protections for language minorities, including Spanish, Chinese, and other non English speaking Americans requiring certain jurisdictions to provide ballots and assistance in multiple languages -
Voting Rights Act Amendments
Permanently authorized the Act and expanded protections for language minorities by requiring bilingual election materials in areas where a single minority group was more than five percent of the voting‑age population -
Civil Liberties Act
Granted $20,000 and a formal apology to each surviving Japanese American internee of World War II, acknowledging that the internment was based on “race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership”