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13th Amendment
The 13th Amendment of the United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude. It was the first of the three Reconstruction Amendments adopted following the American Civil War. Though many slaves had been declared free by President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, their post-war status was uncertain. Though the amendment formally abolished slavery throughout the US, factors such as Black Codes, white supremacist violence, and selective enforcement of statues. -
14th Amendment
The 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution was adopted as one of the Reconstruction Amendments. The amendment talks about citizenship rights and equal protection of the laws and was proposed in response to issues related to former slaves. The first section forms the basis for landmark decisions such as Roe v. Wade, regarding abortion. The amendment limits the actions of all state and local officials, including those acting on behalf of such an official. -
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 Laws
The Jim Crow Laws were created in 1876 to segregate black people from the white population. Between the 1880s and the 1960s the laws expanded. Many cities and states were able to impose legal punishments on people. -
Poll Taxes
The poll tax was used in the South during and after
Reconstruction as a means of circumventing the 14th Amendment and denying civil rights to blacks. This form of taxation gradually fell out of favor in the South in the mid-20th century, but it was not until the adoption of the 24th Amendment that poll taxes were made illegal as a prerequisite for voting in federal elections. -
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. -
Equal Rights Amendment
Feminists of the late 1960s and early 1970s saw ratification of the amendment as the only way to eliminate all legal gender-based discrimination in the US. Leaders such as Gloria Steinem addressed the legislature and provided argument after argument in support of the ERA. Feminist groups maintained that a serious blow was struck toward the idea of gender equity in the United States. -
19th Amendment
The 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution granted women the right to vote, prohibiting any United States citizen to be denied the right to vote based on sex. It was ratified on August 18, 1920 after a long struggle known as the women’s suffrage movement. It was first drafted in 1878 by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton 30 years after the Seneca Falls Convention, where the idea of women’s suffrage gained prominence in the United States. -
Korematsu v. United States
During World War II, Presidential Executive Order 9066 and congressional statutes gave the military authority to exclude Japanese citizens from areas thought to be critical to national defense. Korematsu remained in San Leandro, California and violated Civilian Exclusion Order No. 34 of the U.S. Army. -
Sweatt v. Painter
A black man, Heman Marion Sweatt, was refused admission to the School of Law of the University of Texas. At the time, no law school in Texas would admit black students. The court held off the trial for 6 months, just long enough to create a law school only for black students which was called the Thurgood Marshall School of Law at Texas Southern University. Sweatt and the NAACP went to the federal courts, ultimately the U.S. Supreme Court. The Supreme Court said that the lower -
Brown v. Board of Education
State laws established that separate public schools for black and white students were unconstitutional. De jure racial segregation was ruled as a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. -
Montgomery Bus Boycott
The Montgomery Bus Boycott, in which African Americans refused to ride city buses in Montgomery, Alabama, to protest segregated seating, took place from December 5, 1955, to December 20, 1956, and is regarded as the first large-scale demonstration against segregation in the U.S. On December 1, 1955, four days before the boycott began, Rosa Parks, an African-American woman, refused to yield her seat to a white man on a Montgomery bus. -
Affirmative Action
The term was first used in the United States in Executive Order 10925 and was signed by President John F. Kennedy. It was used to promote actions that achieve non-discrimination. In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson issued Executive Order 11246 which required government employers to take "affirmative action" to "hire without regard to race, religion and national origin". -
24th Amendment
The Twenty-fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits requiring a poll tax for voters in federal elections. Southern states of the former Confederacy adopted poll taxes in laws of the late 19th century and new constitutions from 1890 to 1908, after the Democratic Party had generally regained control of state legislatures decades after the end of Reconstruction, as a measure to prevent African Americans and often poor whites from voting. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964, which ended segregation in public places and banned employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin, is considered one of the crowning legislative achievements of the civil rights movement.the act forbade the use of federal funds for any discriminatory program, authorized the Office of Education to assist with school desegregation and gave extra clout to the Commission on Civil Rights. -
Voting Rights Act of 1965
The Voting Rights Act bans racial discrimination in voting practices by the federal government as well as by state and local governments. the VRA is often held up as the most effective civil rights law ever enacted. It is widely regarded as enabling the enfranchisement of millions of minority voters and diversifying the electorate and legislative bodies at all levels of American government. -
Robert Kennedy Speech
Before boarding a plane to attend campaign rallies in Indianapolis, Kennedy learned that King had been shot. When he arrived, Kennedy was informed that King had died. Despite fears of riots and concerns for his safety, Kennedy went ahead with plans to attend a rally at 17th and Broadway in the heart of Indianapolis's African-American ghetto. That evening Kennedy addressed the crowd, many of whom had not heard about King's assassination. -
Reed v. Reed
Sally and Cecil Reed, a divorced couple, were in conflict over which of them were to designate as administrator of the estate of their deceased son. According to Idaho Code, "males must be preferred to females" when appointing administrators of estates. Sally Reed argued that the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits discrimination based on gender. After a many appeals by Sally and Cecil, the Supreme Court considered the case made a unanimous decision that the Idaho Code's preference -
Regents of the University of California v. Bakke
Allan Bakke had applied twice for the University of California Medical School and was rejected both times. The school reserved sixteen places in each entering class of one hundred for "qualified" minorities, as part of the university's affirmative action program, Bakke's qualifications exceeded those of the minority students. He was excluded from admission solely on the basis of race. -
Plessy v. Ferguson
A man named Plessy bought a first-class ticket to a "whites only" train. He refused to move to the black-only train and was arrested. His lawyers argued that the state law which required East Louisiana Railroad to segregate trains had denied him his rights under the 13th and 14th amendments, which gives equal treatment under the law. The judge presiding over his case ruled that Louisiana had the right to regulate railroad companies while they operated within state -
Bowers v. Hardwick
Michael Hardwick was convicted of engaging in the act of consensual homosexual sodomy with another adult in the bedroom of his home. After being charged with violating a Georgia statute that criminalized sodomy, Hardwick challenged the statute's constitutionality in Federal District Court. On appeal, the Court of Appeals said that Georgia's statute was unconstitutional. Georgia's Attorney General, Michael J. Bowers, appealed to the Supreme Court and was granted certiorari. -
Americans with Disabilities Act
A civil rights law that prohibits discrimination based on disability. It requires covered employers to provide reasonable accommodations to employees with disabilities, and imposes accessibility requirements on public accommodations. It includes both mental and physical medical conditions. -
Lawrence v. Texas
Responding to a reported weapons disturbance in a private residence, Houston police entered John Lawrence's apartment and saw him and another ma engaging in a consensual sexual act. Lawrence and Garner were arrested and convicted of deviate sexual intercourse in violation of a Texas law forbidding two people of the same sex to engage in certain intimate sexual conduct. The State Court of Appeals held that the statute was not unconstitutional under the Due Process Clause of the 14th amendment. -
Fisher v. Texas
Abigail N. Fisher applied for undergraduate admission to the University of Texas. She was not in the top ten percent of her class, so she competed for admission with other non-top ten percent in-state applicants. The University denied her application. Fisher filed against the university claiming that the University of Texas' use of race as a consideration in admission decisions was in violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment. The district court decided in favor of the Uni. -
Indiana’s Gay Rights Court Battle
The state has gone back and forth in legalizing gay marriage. But on October 14th, it was finally legalized. Five same-sex marriage lawsuits were filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana in March 2014: Love v. Pence, Baskin v. Bogan, Fujii v. Pence, Bowling v. Pence, and Lee v. Pence.
