Equality & Civil Rights

 search for social &

economic equality

 from civil rights of black

citizens to the Civil War

 other minorities & their

methods
 Civil Rights – powers or privileges
guaranteed to the individual & protected
from arbitrary removal at the hands of the
government or other individuals
The Civil War Amendments
 13th Amendment, 1865
 Neither slavery
nor
involuntary
servitude …
shall exist
within the
United States,
or any place
subject to their
jurisdiction.
 14th Amendment, 1868
 All persons born or naturalized in the US, and subject to the
jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the US and of the State wherein
they reside.
 prohibits abridging the “privileges or immunities of citizens of the
US” or depriving “any person of life, liberty, or property, without due
process of law”
 no state shall “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws”
 15th Amendment, 1870
 the right of citizens of the US to vote shall
not be denied or abridged by the US or by
any State on account of race, color, or
previous condition of servitude.
Congress & The Supreme Court:
Lawmaking vs. Law Interpreting
 1866-civil rights act x black codes
 Civil rights Act of 1875
 Supreme Court & it’s opposite

aims
 1876 & Court’s interpretations
 Racism – a belief that inherent

differences among races determine

achievement and that one’s own race
is superior to and has a right to rule others.
 Pol Tax
The Roots of Racial
Segregation
 Racial segregation before the Civil War
 After the Civil War – Jim Crow laws
 Plessy vs Ferguson (1896)
 Separate-but-Equal Doctrine - a system of segregation that
justifies giving different groups of people separate facilities
or services with the claim that each group still receives
equal quality of treatment
The Dismantling of School Segregation

1. Pressing for fully equal facilities for blacks

2. Providing the unconstitutionality of segregation
Pressure for Equality…
Lloyd Gaines’ case

Herman Sweatt’s case

George McLaurin’s case

… Pressure for Desegregation
 Harry S. Truman & his support
 Brown v. Board of Education
 “in the field of public
education the doctrine of
‘separate-but-equal’ has no
place” Earl Warren
 Brown v.Board of EducationII
 Swann v. Charlotte-
Mecklenburg County School
 de jure segregation – de facto
segregation
The Civil Rights Movement
 NAACP’s achievements:
whites-only elections
interstate bus routes
restaurants & hotels
 Eisenhower “It makes no
difference…the Constitution
is as the Supreme Court interprets it”
 “a bulletin board to a people who
owned no organs of communication,
a credit union to those without banks,
and even a kind of people’s court”
Civil Disobedience
 Rosa Parks

 Montgomery
Bus Boycott

 Martin
Luther King

 Sit – down
protest
The Civil Rights Act of 1964
 JFK & his attitude
 Act:
 entitled all persons to the “full and equal enjoyment” of
goods, services, and privileges in places of public
accomodations without discrimination on the grounds of
race, color, religion, or national origin.
 Established the right to equality in employment opportunities
 Streghtened voting rights legislation
 Created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission,
charging it to hear and investigate complaints of job
discrimination
 Provided that funds could be withheld from federally assisted
programs that were administered in a discriminatory manner.
Johnson & His Goal
 The 24th Amendment (1964) banned
poll taxes and general elections for
national office
 The Economic Opportunity Act
(1964) focused on education and
training to combat poverty
 The Voting Rights Act (1965)
empowered general to send voter
registration supervisors to areas in
which fewer than half the eligible
minority voters had been registered
 The Fair Housing Act (1968) banned
discrimination in the rental or sale of
most housing
 Racial Violence and Black
Nationalism
 Violence of
1964

 Malcolm X

 Black
Panthers

 Effects of
the
movement