Slavery divided the country into northern free states and southern slave states.
- The Constitution left each state to decide for itself whether to permit slavery.
- The Missouri Compromise (1820) banned the admission of slave states from the Northwest Territory.
- In the Dred Scott case, Supreme Court invalidates Missouri Compromise, rules Congress cannot ban slavery in the territories.
Civil War and Reconstruction ended slavery and advanced the civil rights of African Americans.
- Thirteenth Amendment (1865) bans slavery in the United States.
- Fourteenth Amendment (1868) grants all citizens equal protection before the law.
- Fifteenth Amendment (1870) gives former slaves the vote.
The end of reconstruction led to the return of segregation in the South.
- Jim Crow laws mandated forced segregation of whites and African Americans and prohibited interracial marriage.
- In Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), the Supreme Court established the "separate but equal" doctrine supporting segregation.
- Southern states used poll taxes, literacy tests, and property qualifications to deny African Americans the vote.
NAACP successfully challenged some segregation laws and ushered in era of more equal citizenry.
- In Brown v. Board of Education (1954), the Supreme Court ruled that segregated facilities are by definition unequal.
- In 1955, the Court ordered the desegregation of public schools "with all deliberate speed."
The Brown decision led to a popular civil rights movement and federal civil rights legislation.
- In 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama, for refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger.
- Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. led a successful boycott of Montgomery buses.
- King used nonviolent protest to highlight African Americans' struggle for civil rights.
- The Civil Rights Act of 1964 bars discrimination in public accommodations and employment.
- The Voting Rights Act of 1965 outlaws literacy tests and allows federal officials to enter southern states to register African American voters.
INTERPRETING EQUALITY
The Supreme Court has constructed three tests for cases arising under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
- The rational basis test compels a plaintiff to prove that a law giving preference to one group over another is unreasonable.
- The intermediate scrutiny test forces the government to prove that such a law is reasonable.
- The strict scrutiny test forces the government to prove that such a law serves a compelling government end and is the "least restrictive means" of achieving that end.
Affirmative action programs promote preferential treatment for members of groups that have suffered from "invidious discrimination."
In the Bakke case (1978), the Supreme Court ruled that the use of racial quotas alone was impermissible in determining admission to a university.
The Court has upheld the use of racial quotas in other situations and added gender as a category for affirmative action programs.
Opponents of affirmative action programs claim that such programs amount to unfair reverse discrimination.
OTHER MINORITY GROUPS
Government policy toward Native Americans has gone from genocide and isolation to assimilation and finally to citizenship.
- The government forcibly resettled displaced Native Americans onto isolated reservations.
- Native Americans lacked citizenship and the right to vote until 1924.
- In the 1960s, Native Americans began to use the courts to achieve civil rights.
- The 1968 Civil Rights Act included an Indian Bill of Rights.
- Native Americans still suffer more than most Americans from ill health, poverty, and poor educational opportunities.
Hispanic Americans constitute the nation's largest minority group.
- Hispanic civil rights leaders carefully studied African American groups and adopted many of the same tactics.
- Caesar Chavez organized strikes in the late 1960s and 1970s to attain basic labor rights for Hispanic migrant workers.
- Hispanic Americans have benefited from the 1964 Civil Rights Act and other civil rights legislation.
- Today there are more than 5,000 elected Hispanic officials in the United States.
Asian Americans have suffered from discrimination but have gained prominent positions in American society.
- In the 1920s, Congress strictly limited immigration from Asia.
- During World War II, the U.S. government forced hundreds of thousands of Japanese Americans into internment camps.
- Asian Americans are now the fastest-growing minority group in the United States.
Disabled American veterans were largely responsible for the passage of the first rehabilitation laws in the late 1920s.
- The 1973 Rehabilitation Act protected people with disabilities from discrimination.
- The 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) guarantees disabled Americans access to public facilities, workplaces, and communication services.
- Recent Supreme Court rulings have both extended and limited the impact of the ADA.
Senior citizens have become an important factor in the American political system.
- The American Association of Retired Persons is one of the most powerful interest groups in Washington, D.C.
- The 1967 Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) protects workers over 40 from age discrimination.
- Congress abolished mandatory retirement for most occupations.
Gay and lesbian Americans have had a more difficult time achieving equality than other minority groups.
- Gays and lesbians must contend with homophobia, an often violent fear and hatred of homosexuals.
- A 1969 police raid on New York City's Stonewall Inn, a popular gay and lesbian bar, sparked the U.S. gay rights movement.
- Today, 12 states and more than 200 cities have statutes protecting gays and lesbians from discrimination.
- Since the 1990s, several states have passed laws granting homosexual couples many of the same rights as married heterosexual couples.
- The 1996 Defense of Marriage Act prohibits federal recognition of gay and lesbian couples and allows state governments to ignore same-sex marriages performed in other states.
- Several states have recently passed ballot initiatives banning same-sex marriages.
WOMEN AND CIVIL RIGHTS
Women represent a majority of the U.S. population, yet they have had to struggle for equal rights.
The early women's rights movement grew from the religious revivalism and abolitionist movements of the mid-1800s.
In 1890, women's rights advocates formed the National American Woman Suffrage Association to secure the vote for women.
In 1920, the states adopted the Twentieth Amendment, giving women the vote.
The civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s sparked a resurgence of activism for women's rights.
- A 1963 government report found widespread discrimination against women in all walks of life.
- The 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibited discrimination by sex and created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to enforce the law.
- In the 1970s, the National Organization for Women focused unsuccessfully on passing an Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution.
Issues affecting modern American women include workplace and educational equity, sexual harassment, and women's role in the military.
- Congress has passed several laws mandating equal pay, but women earn only 77 cents for every dollar men earn.
- The Supreme Court has declared sexual harassment a violation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act if it creates a hostile or abusive work environment.
- The Court has also forced employers to assume greater responsibility for sexual harassment committed by their employees.
- Men and women currently serve together in U.S military units, but federal law prohibits women from serving in combat.
