Chapter 21

Civil Rights:Equal Justice Under Law

Black Codes• laws passed by Southern law-

makers after the Civil War• denied African-Americans of

many of their rights:-voting-jury duty

• regulated their work habits

Another purposefor the black codes wasto separate blacks from

whites in society.

Segregate

Congressional reaction to Black Codes:

Civil Rights Act of 1866• guaranteed blacks the citizenship

and civil rights enjoyed by other Americans

• protected blacks from state laws that were discriminatory

Amendment 14

• state and local governments must respect certain civil rights

• state and local governments are required to protect these rights as well

Jim Crow Laws• acts passed by legislatures in the

South designed to segregate and legalize discrimination

[although segregation was not usually written into state law in the North, the practice was common in housing, public places, and schools]

Plessy v. Ferguson

• case heard by the Supreme Court in 1896

• segregation legal as long as “equal” facilities were provided for both blacks and whites

Civil Rights MovementBlacks began to organize and work

for rights in the early-1900s:• achieved some reforms in:

-voting rights-housing-employment-armed forces

Civil Rights groups

• NAACP, or the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

• SCLC, or Southern Christian Leadership Conference

• CORE, or Congress for Racial Equality

Strategies used:

• non-violent sit-ins

• marches

• boycotts

• lawsuits

• violence