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Dred Scott v. Sandford
Dred Scott was a slave in Missouri, who then moved to Illinois from 1833 to 1843 which is free state. Scott sued for his freedom after he moved back to Missouri in 1843. The court ruled that no negro whose ancestors were imported to the United States as slaves could be American Citizens and therefore could not sue in federal court. -
13th Amendment
This amendment is the amendment that made slavery and involuntary servitude illegal in the United States. This was apart of the Civil War Amendments that came following the ending of the Civil War. -
14th Amendment
This amendment guaranteed citizenship to all people born in the United States including former slaves and granted all citizens equal protection of laws. -
15th Amendment
This amendment gave African Americans the right to vote. It stated that voting rights shall not be abridged in regards to race, color, or previous servitude. -
Plessy v. Ferguson
Plessy v. Ferguson was a landmark supreme court case that established the separate but equal doctrine. The case was based upon when Plessy a man who was 1/8 black sat in a whites only train car in the state of Louisiana. His lawyers argued that it was against the 14th amendment and the equal protections that it promised but the court ruled that it was in fact legal. -
Nineteenth Amendment
The nineteenth amendment gave woman the right to vote. -
White Primaries
White primaries were local primary elections in the South in which only whites were allowed to vote. This was because they were not technically state-wide elections, so they could not allow blacks to vote, giving white southerners much greater power. They were eventually made illegal in Smith v. Allwright. -
Brown v. Board of Education
Another landmark supreme court case, this case reversed the ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson of separate but equal when it was ruled that separate was inherently unequal and the Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation in schools was unconstitutional. -
24th Amendment
This amendment makes the use of poll taxes or any other kind of voting tax illegal. This amendment ended the long standing southern practice of poll taxes to disallow African Americans the ability to vote, it was apart of other jim crow laws in place at the time. -
Poll Taxes
Poll taxes were established in thee 1890s and were used as a legal way to prevent African Americans from voting. They required people to pay a tax before being able to vote which many African Americans could not afford. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
This act disallowed any kind of discrimination based upon race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Segregation across the country was finally banned, which had been in place in largely the south since the end of the Civil War. -
Voting Rights Act of 1965
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 outlawed many of the voting practices that had been going on in the South since the ending of the Civil War including the practice of literacy tests that were used to prevent African Americans from voting. -
Affirmative Action
Affirmative Action is a process in which a group or government or organization attempts to include particular groups of a race, sex, sexuality, or creed based upon these things in areas where they are underrepresented such as education. -
Reed v. Reed
Reed v. Reed was a supreme court case in which a separated married couple each was fighting for the estate of their deceased son. Under Idaho law at the time the estate would automatically go the male. But Sally Reed sued and said that this was against the equal protections clause, the supreme court agreed in the first supreme court case that challenged the clause in terms of sex. -
Equal Rights Amendment
The Equal Rights Amendment was a proposed constitutional amendment that would guarantee equal legal rights for all American citizens no matter the sex. The amendment was passed in both the house and senate but did not receive enough state ratifications to be made law. -
Regents of the University of California v. Bakke
This supreme court case established that affirmative action that would include things like race as a factor in the college admissions process was allowed, but a set number of reserved spots for minorities is not allowed. -
Bowers v. Hardwick
This case was in which a man in Georgia was observed by a police officer engaging in homosexual activity which is illegal under state law. Hardwick, the man in the case, sued and the case eventually reached the court where the court ruled that there is no constitutional protection against sodemy, which makes the state laws banning it legal. -
Americans With Disabilities Act
This act prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities when it comes to things such as employment, transportation, public accommodations, etc. -
Motor Voter Act
This act allows American citizens to vote by simply having a drivers license. This was in effort to increase voter turnout. It also requires states to create mail-in registration forms. -
Lawrence v. Texas
This case, similar to Bowers v. Hardwick, tried Texas state law that banned same-sex sexual interactions. Police arrested John Lawrence after entering for a weapons related disturnbence and saw him engaging in a consensual sexual act with another man. The court ruled the Texas state law banning this unconstitutional and therefore overturned Bowers v. Hardwick. -
Obergefell v. Hodges
Groups of same-sex couples sued the states of Ohio, Michigan, Tennessee, and Kentucky for their state ban on same-sex marriage. The court ruled these bans to be unconstitutional.
