Civil Rights Flashcards
(17 cards)
What is the Bill of Rights?
The first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution, proposed by the first Federal Congress and ratified by the states in 1791
What Supreme Court case was crucial to the Civil War + the resulting amendments?
Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857)
The court declared that African Americans, whether free or slave, were not citizens of the U.S. Moreover, slaves were property and could be carried into any state in the Union, even a free state, and held as property.
What was the Thirteenth Amendment?
Freedom - December 18, 1865.
“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”
What was the Fourteenth Amendment?
Equality Under the Law - July 28, 1868
“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
What was the Fifteenth Amendment?
Voting Rights - March 30, 1870
“The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State on account of race, colour, or previous condition of servitude.
What was selective incorporation?
The case-by-case incorporation, by the courts, of the Bill of Rights into the due process clause of the 14th Amendment
What was the impact of the Slaughterhouse Cases on selective incorporation?
Slaughterhouse Cases (1873)
With this decision, the Supreme Court limited the impacts of the post–Civil War Amendments by defining U.S. citizenship narrowly and leaving the states to determine the rights of their citizens and regulate domestic race relations.
What was the most significant case for enabling segregation?
Plessy v Ferguson (1896)
The Supreme Court upheld a state law that segregated the races in transportation. According to the court’s analysis, the races could be confined to separate spheres within society as long as they were treated equally, thus originating the separate but equal doctrine.
Define Civil Rights
Specific rights that embody the general right to equal treatment under the law
Define Civil Liberties
Fundamental freedoms that together preserve the rights of a free people
What was abolitionism?
Advocates of slavery’s abolition in the United States.
What was the Reconstruction?
The period after the Civil War, when Southern states were subject to a Federal military presence
What was the result of the end of Reconstruction?
End of Reconstruction led to restoration of:
Poll tax: Fee that one must pay in order to be allowed to vote
Literacy Tests: Often applied unequally
Grandfather clause: Racially restrictive provision of certain southern laws after Reconstruction, that permitted a man to vote if his father or grandfather could have voted before the Civil War.
White primary: Primary elections, held by the Democratic party after Reconstruction, that excluded nonwhites from participation in many southern states.
Jim Crow laws: Laws, passed by southern states after Reconstruction, enforcing segregation.
What was Jim Crow?
Jim Crow is the generic name for all of the laws and practices that enforced segregation of the races in the American South and elsewhere from the end of the nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth century.
What was the major Supreme Court case that struck a blow to segregation?
Brown v. Board of Education (1954)
This landmark case overturned Plessy and declared that separate was inherently unequal. Consequently, the segregation of public schools was unconstitutional.
What is Affirmative Action?
Policies and actions designed to make up for the effects of past discrimination by giving preferences today to specified racial, ethnic, and sexual groups.
What was the Supreme Court Case that determined the limits of Affirmative Action?
Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978)
This landmark affirmative action case stated that race could be taken into account in admissions decisions as long as the institution did not set aside a specific number of seats for which only minorities were eligible.
