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Dred Scott v. Sandford
Dred Scott was a slave in Missouri. He was a resident in Illinois which made him a free man. When he returned to Missouri he filed a suit in the court for his freedom. Since he has residency in a free territory that made him a free man. The conclusion of the court was that an African American could not be a citizen if ancestors were imported to the United States and enslaved. He did not have stand to sue the court. -
13th amendment
The 13th amendment sates that: Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. Slavery was officially abolished. -
14th amendment
The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, granted citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United Statesand guaranteed all citizens “equal protection of the laws.” One of three amendments passed during the Reconstruction era to abolish slavery and establish civil and legal rights for African Americans, it would become the basis for many landmark Supreme Court decisions over the years. -
15th amendment
The 15th amendment granted African American men the right to vote. Despite the amendment there were still racial practices happening to prevent black citizens from exercising their right to vote. -
Plessy v Ferguson
Plessy v. Ferguson was a landmark Supreme Court decision that upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation under the “separate but equal” clause. It led to restrictive Jim Crow legislation and separate public accommodations based on race became commonplace. -
Nineteenth Amendment
The nineteenth amendment states that: The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. -
White Primaries
White primaries were primary elections held in the Southern United States in which only white voters were permitted to participate. -
Brown v the Board of Education
This case was about segregation case in the public school education. It was decided that separate but equal clause was inherently unconstitutional. -
Affirmative action
Affirmative action refers to a set of policies and practices within a government or organization seeking to increase the representation of particular groups based on their gender, race, sexuality, creed or nationality in areas in which they are underrepresented such as education and employment. -
poll taxes
A poll tax, is a tax levied as a fixed sum on every liable individual , without reference to income or resources. Head taxes were important sources of revenue for many governments from ancient times until the 19th century. The 24th amendment got passed stating that poll taxes were prohibited. -
24th amendment
The 24th amendment prohibited federals and state governments from imposing a poll tax before election. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. Provisions of this civil rights act forbade discrimination on the basis of sex, as well as, race in hiring, promoting, and firing. -
Voting Rights Act of 1965
This act was signed into law on, by President Lyndon Johnson. It outlawed the discriminatory voting practices adopted in many southern states after the Civil War, including literacy tests as a prerequisite to voting. -
Reed v Reed
Reed v. Reed, was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court ruling that the administrators of estates cannot be named in a way that discriminates between sexes. -
Equal Rights Amendment
The Equal Rights Amendment is a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution designed to guarantee equal legal rights for all American citizens regardless of sex. It seeks to end the legal distinctions between men and women in matters of divorce, property, employment, and other matters. -
Regents of University of California v. Bakke
In this case, the Supreme Court ruled that a university's use of racial "quotas" in its admissions process was unconstitutional and a school's use of "affirmative action" to accept more minority applicants was constitutional in some circumstances. -
Bowers v Hardwick
In this case, a man was convicted of engaging in the act of consensual homosexual sodomy with another adult which was illegal at the time. The court ruled that there was no constitutional protection for acts of sodomy, and that states could outlaw those practices. -
Americans with disabilities act
The Americans with Disabilities Act is a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination based on disability. -
Lawrence v Texas
This case was a landmark case that stated that a Texas statute criminalizing intimate, consensual sexual conduct was a violation of the Due Process Clause. The statute at issue originally criminalized any oral and anal sexual activity. -
Obergefell v Hodges
This case is a landmark civil rights case in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the fundamental right to marry is guaranteed to same-sex couples by both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
