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Formally abolished slavery throughout the United States, making “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude” legal except as punishment for a crime -
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 -
Prohibited denying the right to vote based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude, giving the right to vote to African American men -
The Supreme Court upheld “separate but equal” segregation, legally justifying state‑sponsored racial segregation in public facilities until it was overturned in 1954 -
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 -
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 -
Ended allotment of tribal lands and encouraged Native self‑government, a shift from forced assimilation toward recognition of tribal sovereignty -
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 -
Overturned “separate but equal” in public schools, declaring segregation in public education inherently unequal under the Fourteenth Amendment -
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 -
Established federal inspection of local voter registration polls and introduced penalties for anyone obstructing someone’s attempt to register or vote -
Abolished poll taxes in federal elections, removing a major barrier that Southern states had used to keep Black citizens from voting -
Prohibited discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin in employment, public accommodations, and federally funded programs -
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 -
Outlawed discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of housing based on race, religion, national origin, and later gender and disability -
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 -
Extended the 1965 Act for five years and lowered the voting age in state and local elections from 21 to 18 for all races -
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 -
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 -
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”