Civil Rights Law
The rights that are most commonly
referred to as "civil rights" involve the protections
against discrimination on the basis of race, religion, gender,
or national origin.
The
most prominent example of a statute protecting civil rights
is the Federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 which, among other
things, prohibits discrimination on the basis of race in
places of public accommodation.
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Racial Discrimination
The Declaration of Independence,
issued on July 4, 1776, stated "We hold these truths
to be self-evident: That all men are created equal..."
Yet the new nation declaring its independence permitted
the continuation of the practice of slavery for people of
African heritage - a practice that continued until the Civil
War in the 1860s. At the conclusion of the Civil War, much
remained to be done to ensure the rights and privileges
of citizenship to all Americans. As America became a more
diverse nation, welcoming immigrants from around the globe,
problems of racial discrimination endured for many minority
group members. Women and persons with disabilities also
fought for and obtained laws that provided for fairness
and equality.
On January 1, 1863, President Abraham
Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation which freed
the slaves held in the states still fighting in the Civil
War. After the War, the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution,
adopted in 1865, abolished slavery everywhere in the United
States. The Fourteenth Amendment, adopted in 1868, made
the former slaves, and any other person born in the United
States or naturalized, a citizen and required that all citizens
be granted equal protection of the law. The Fifteenth Amendment,
adopted in 1879, made it against the law to deny any citizen
the right to vote because of his or her race or color or
because he or she was formerly a slave.
Despite
the promises of these new laws, the former slaves and their
descendants, along with other racial and ethnic minorities,
did not receive equal treatment under the law. In fact,
in 1896, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that
State governments could separate people of different races
as long as the separate facilities were equal. This "separate
but equal" doctrine lasted until 1954 when the Supreme
Court overruled its previous decision in cases involving
schools in Kansas, South Carolina, Virginia, and Delaware.
Also in the 1890s, African-Americans were kept from exercising
their right to vote by taxes, called "poll taxes",
that had to be paid before a person could cast a vote and
by tests given by voting registrars who had the power to
pass or fail an applicant based on the color of his or her
skin. Poll taxes and voting tests were finally outlawed
by the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
On December
1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama,
refused to give up her seat on a public bus to a white man
who had boarded the bus after she did. At that time, public
buses in the South were segregated, and African-Americans
not only had to ride in the back of the bus, but also had
to give up their seats to any white person who wanted to
sit. Ms. Parks was arrested and taken to jail for refusing
to give up her seat. On December 5, 1955, African-Americans
in Montgomery began a boycott of the public buses led by
a minister who had recently come to the Dexter Avenue Baptist
Church in Montgomery, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The peaceful
boycott continued for 381 days during which time 90% of
the African-Americans in Montgomery refused to ride the
buses. At the end, the buses in Montgomery were desegregated.
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