Chapter 6

Civil Rights

Early Slavery Issues

• Congress banned slave trade in 1808.– 20 year period specified by Constitution

• Battle of north vs. south

• Missouri Compromise of 1820– Missouri admitted as a slave state, Maine

admitted as a free state

Impact of the Civil War

• Civil War Amendments– 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments – Southern states were required to ratify these

amendments for re-admittance to Union– States enforced Black Codes– 14th amendment adds word “male” to

constitution • Follow up to Civil Rights Act of 1866: formally gave

African Americans citizenship

Civil Rights, Congress, and Supreme Court

• Congress supported African-Americans, Supreme Court did not.

• Judicial decisions also upheld Jim Crow Laws

• Civil Rights Cases – Supreme Court ruled that Congress could not

prohibit individual (private) acts of discrimination

Southern States Resist 15th Amendment

• Methods to keep African-Americans from voting included– Literacy tests– Poll taxes– Property-owning qualifications– Grandfather clause

Campaign in the Courts

• 14th amendment– broad interpretation: no differential treatment is

acceptable– narrow interpretation: equal legal rights, but African

Americans and whites could otherwise be treated differently.

• Supreme Court adopted narrow view in Plessy v Ferguson (1896).

Plessy v. Ferguson

• Based around Louisiana state law mandating racial segregation for train cars

• Challenged by Homer Plessy, who was 7/8 white

• Supreme Court upheld Louisiana state law on the basis that “separate but equal” did not violate 14th amendment

• Eventually overturned by Brown v. Board

Push for Equality

• NAACP– National Association of Advancement for

Colored People– W.E.B. DuBois

• NAWSA– National American Women’s Suffrage

Association – Keyed 19th Amendment

NAACP Litigation Against “Plessy”

• NAACP campaign relied on courts.

• Targeted postgraduate law schools and won

• Thurgood Marshall: head of NAACP LDF– Became 1st African-American S.C. justice

• Separation is inherently unequal- Brown v. Board of Education (1954)

School Desegregation After Brown

• Supreme Court decisions can be difficult to implement– Ten years after Brown, only 1% of Southern

schools were desegregated

• Arkansas’ governor refused to desegregate

• President Eisenhower sends down national guard

African-American Rights Movement

• Rosa Parks successfully challenged segregated bus system

• MLK Jr’s march on D.C.

• JFK urged Congress to pass a law banning discrimination. – Continued by Lyndon B. Johnson after JFK’s

assassination

Civil Rights Act of 1964

• Outlawed segregation in – voter registration– public accommodations engaged in interstate

commerce• Heart of Atlanta Motel v. U.S.

– Employment on grounds of race, color, religion, national origin, or sex

Impact of Civil Rights Act

• Education– Authorized Dept. of Justice to bring actions

against insubordinate school districts that failed to comply with Brown v. Board of Ed.

– De jure discrimination must be eliminated

• Employment– Prevented discrimination based on race, sex,

age, religion, and origin– Included pregnancy in 1978

Women’s Rights

• Equal Employment Opportunity Commission failed to enforce CRA as it applied to sex discrimination

• Female activists formed National Organization for Women (NOW)

• Equal Rights Amendment – Momentum halted by Roe ruling– Need for amendment became less urgent

Equal Pay Act and Title IX

• 1963 Equal Pay Act required employers to pay men and women equally.– Mixed results

• Title IX bars educational institutions receiving federal funds from discriminating against females– Sports, education, classes, etc..

Hispanic Americans

• Earliest push occurred in 1960’s

• 1965 Cesar Chavez organized workers into United Farm Workers Union– Led strike against grape growers

• Relied heavily on litigation– Mexican American Legal Defense

and Educational Fund (MALDEF)

Disabled Americans

• 1990, veterans and other disabled people convinced Congress to pass the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)– Physical or mental impairment that limits one

or more “life activities”– Extended Civil Rights Act to all those with

physical or mental disability

Affirmative Action

• Policies designed to give special attention or compensatory treatment to members of a previously disadvantaged group

• Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978)