The Civil War Amendments - Oregon Historical Society



Webster’s New World Dictionary defines Civil Rights as “those rights guaranteed to the individual by the 13th, 14th, 15th and 19th Amendments to the Constitution of the United States and by other acts of Congress; especially the right to vote, exemption from involuntary servitude, and equal treatment of all people with respect to the enjoyment of life, liberty, and property and to the protection of the law.”The Civil War Amendments13th Amendment (1865): Slavery is made illegal throughout the United States of America.14th Amendment (1868): All people born in the U.S are citizens. No state may take away the rights of citizens, i.e. equal treatment of all people with respect to the enjoyment of life, liberty, and property and to the protection of the law.15th Amendment (1870): The right to vote cannot be denied to citizens because of their race or color because they were once enslaved.19th Amendment (1920): guaranteed women the right to vote in national elections.26th Amendment (1971): any citizen aged 18 years or older is allowed to vote.(1857) - Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393, known as the Dred Scott Decision, was a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court. It made two main rulings: First, African-Americans were not citizens, and therefore had no standing to sue in federal court. Second was that the federal government had no power to regulate slavery in any territory acquired subsequent to the creation of the United States.(1896) - Plessy v. Ferguson is a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld the constitutionality of state laws requiring racial segregation in public facilities under the doctrine of "separate but equal". In 1890, Louisiana state passed a law (the Separate Car Act) requiring separate accommodations for blacks and whites on railroads, including separate railway cars. Concerned, a group of prominent black, creole, and white New Orleans residents formed the Committee of Citizens dedicated to repeal the law. (c. 1918–37) - Harlem Renaissance was a blossoming of African American culture and influential movement in Black literary history. The Harlem Renaissance embraced literature, music, theater, and the visual arts. Writers, such as Jean Toomer, Jessie Fauset, Claude McKay, Zora Neale Hurston, James Weldon Johnson, Alain Locke, Eric D. Walrond, and Langston Hughes, gained national attention, and musicians Fats Waller, Duke Ellington, Jelly Roll Morton, and others. (1946) - Mendez, et al v. Westminster School District, et al was a federal court case challenging racial segregation in Orange County, CA, schools. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit found the segregation of Mexican and Mexican American students into separate "Mexican schools" unconstitutional.(1954) - Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 - U.S. Supreme Court case which declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students unconstitutional. The decision overturned Plessy v. Ferguson which allowed state-sponsored segregation. The Court's (9–0) decision stated that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." Thus, racial segregation was ruled a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.Other important events in the Civil Rights movement 1955: Civil rights leaders protest segregated bus lines in Montgomery1957: Civil Rights Commission established 1963: Martin Luther King Jr., leads protest march in Washington, D.C.1964: Civil Rights Act protects voting rights, and outlaws job discrimination and segregation in public places1965: Voting Rights Act prohibited Southern states from preventing African Americans from votingOf Interest: When the Emancipation Proclamation was signed in 1863, less than 8% of the African-American population lived in the Northeastern or Midwestern United States. In 1900, 90% of blacks still lived in Southern states. The Great Migration was the movement of 6 million African Americans out of the rural Southern United States to the Northeast, Midwest, and West for most of the 20th century. ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download