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Emancipation Proclamation
The Emancipation Proclamation
The Emancipation Proclamation was a document issued by Abraham Lincoln that declared that all persons held as slaves shall be released. -
14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
Amendment XIVThe 14th Amendment expanded the rights of many African-Americans. It states that nobody is denied the rights to "life, liberty or property, without due process of law". It also granted citizenship to granted citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States.” -
Civil Rights Act
The Civil Rights Act of 1871Also known as the Enforcement Act of 1871, the Civil Rights Act of 1871 was an act to suspend the court order of habeas corpus to fight the Ku Klux Klan. The 42nd United States Congress enacted this. It prohibits violence against blacks and -
Civil Rights Act of 1875
The Rise and Fall of Jim CrowA groundbreaking federal law proposed by Republican Sen. Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, which guaranteed that everyone in the United States was "entitled to the full and equal enjoyment" of public places and facilities regardless of race or skin color. It also allowed blacks to be included in jury and restrictions were taken off public transportation. -
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Grandfather Clause
The 15th Amendment states “the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged…on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” The Southern states then ordered poll taxes and literacy tests in order to vote, but exempted the people who’s ancestors (grandfathers) had the right to vote before the Civil War. This was to prevent poor and illiterate African Americans from voting, but without denying poor and illiterate whites the right to vote. -
Plessy vs. Ferguson
Plessy v. Ferguson: ImpactAn incident in which an African-American train passenger Homer Plessy, who was seven-eighths Caucasian, refused to sit in the Jim Crow cart of the train which broke Louisiana law. Instead, he took a seat in the white-only section. Plessy argued that his rights were violated, and this went against the Fourteenth Amendment, but was arrested. -
First Meeting of the Niagara Movement
The Niagara Movement was a national organization of colored men established in 1905, taking its name from its first meeting place, Niagara. It was the first significant Black organization. The purposes of the Niagara Movement are set forth on its constituation whcih reads "The Niagara Movement stands for freedom of speech and criticism; manhood suffrage; the abolition of all caste distinctions based simply on race and color; the recognition of the principles of human brother" -
League of Struggle for Negro Rights
In 1931, nine young African American men were charged with the rape of two white women in Scottsboro, Alabama. The men were charged, tried, and sentenced to death for the crimes. The League was mostly focused on support for the "Scottsboro Boys", since they were charged for a crime they did'nt commit. -
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Sipuel v. Board of Regents University of Oklahoma
A United States Supreme Court case involving racial segregation toward African Americans by the University of Oklahoma. Ada Lois Sipuel sent in her application to this University, but was denied because of her skin color in 1946. She argued this went against the Fourteenth Amendment. -
Morgan vs. Virginia
In the spring of 1946, Irene Morgan, a black woman, boarded a bus in Virginia to go to Baltimore, Maryland. She was ordered to sit in the back of the bus, as Virginia state law required. She objected, saying that since the bus was an interstate bus, the Virginia law did not apply. Morgan was arrested and fined ten dollars. The United States Supreme Court ruled that segregation in interstate bus travel was unconstitutional. -
Rosa Parks
The Story Behind The Bus Rosa Parks, an African-American woman wa tired after a long day at work at sat in her designated area of her bus, which was the back. Because she sat down and refused to give up her seat to a white passenger, she was arrested for disobeying an Alabama law requiring black people to relinquish seats to white people when the bus was full. Rosa Parks became an international act of resistence and racial segregation. -
Birmingham Church Bombing
About the 1963 Birmingham BombingOn September 15, a bomb exploded before Sunday morning services at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama–a church with a mostly black communiy that served as a meeting place for civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. Four young girls were killed and many other people injured, in an act of white leadership. -
The Civil Rights Act of 1964
President John F. Kennedy urged the nation to take every step it could in the fair treatment of every citizen. This act forbade any discrimination against race, color, religion, sex and national origin in hiring, schools and other public facilities, and made employment discrimination illegal.
