Civil rights

In July 1848, about 300 people met in Seneca Falls, New York, for the first women's rights convention in the United States. One hundred people — 68 women and 32 men — signed this declaration, written mainly by Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

(1) We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness …

(2) The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

(3) He has never permitted her to exercise her inalienable right to the elective franchise.

(4) He has compelled her to submit to laws, in the formation of which she had no voice.

In July 1848, about 300 people met in Seneca Falls, New York, for the first women's rights convention in the United States. One hundred people — 68 women and 32 men — signed this declaration, written mainly by Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

(1) We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness …

(2) The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

(3) He has never permitted her to exercise her inalienable right to the elective franchise.

(4) He has compelled her to submit to laws, in the formation of which she had no voice.

The Fifteenth Amendment (1870) said the right to vote could not be denied "on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." Later amendments protected the voting rights of other groups.

(1) Nineteenth Amendment (ratified 1920) The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

(2) Twenty-fourth Amendment (ratified 1964), Section 1 The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.

(3) Twenty-sixth Amendment (ratified 1971), Section 1 The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.

(4) Background: A poll tax was a fee a person had to pay before voting. Because the tax did not mention race, it did not break the wording of the Fifteenth Amendment, but it kept many poor citizens, Black and white, from voting. In 1964, five Southern states still charged poll taxes. The Twenty-fourth Amendment covered only federal elections; in 1966, in Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections, the Supreme Court ruled that poll taxes in state elections were unconstitutional too.

(5) Background: Before 1971, most states set the voting age at 21. The Twenty-sixth Amendment was ratified during the Vietnam War, when supporters argued that if 18-year-olds could be drafted to fight, they should be allowed to vote.

In 1892, Homer Plessy sat in a "whites only" railroad car in Louisiana to test a state law requiring separate cars for Black and white passengers. He was arrested. In 1896 the Supreme Court ruled 7–1 against him.

Source 1 — Majority opinion, Justice Henry Billings Brown

(1) We consider the underlying fallacy of the plaintiff's argument to consist in the assumption that the enforced separation of the two races stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority. If this be so, it is not by reason of anything found in the act, but solely because the colored race chooses to put that construction upon it.

Source 2 — Dissenting opinion, Justice John Marshall Harlan

(2) … in view of the Constitution, in the eye of the law, there is in this country no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens. There is no caste here. Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law. …

(3) The thin disguise of "equal" accommodations for passengers in railroad coaches will not mislead any one, nor atone for the wrong this day done.

In 1892, Homer Plessy sat in a "whites only" railroad car in Louisiana to test a state law requiring separate cars for Black and white passengers. He was arrested. In 1896 the Supreme Court ruled 7–1 against him.

Source 1 — Majority opinion, Justice Henry Billings Brown

(1) We consider the underlying fallacy of the plaintiff's argument to consist in the assumption that the enforced separation of the two races stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority. If this be so, it is not by reason of anything found in the act, but solely because the colored race chooses to put that construction upon it.

Source 2 — Dissenting opinion, Justice John Marshall Harlan

(2) … in view of the Constitution, in the eye of the law, there is in this country no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens. There is no caste here. Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law. …

(3) The thin disguise of "equal" accommodations for passengers in railroad coaches will not mislead any one, nor atone for the wrong this day done.

In 1954, the Supreme Court decided several cases together about racially segregated public schools. NAACP lawyers led by Thurgood Marshall argued the cases. The decision, written by Chief Justice Earl Warren, was unanimous (9–0). In paragraph 1, "them" refers to Black children in grade schools and high schools.

(1) To separate them from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone. …

(2) We conclude that, in the field of public education, the doctrine of "separate but equal" has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs and others similarly situated for whom the actions have been brought are, by reason of the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.

In 1954, the Supreme Court decided several cases together about racially segregated public schools. NAACP lawyers led by Thurgood Marshall argued the cases. The decision, written by Chief Justice Earl Warren, was unanimous (9–0). In paragraph 1, "them" refers to Black children in grade schools and high schools.

(1) To separate them from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone. …

(2) We conclude that, in the field of public education, the doctrine of "separate but equal" has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs and others similarly situated for whom the actions have been brought are, by reason of the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.

Source 1 — Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title II, Section 201(a)

(1) All persons shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, and accommodations of any place of public accommodation, as defined in this section, without discrimination or segregation on the ground of race, color, religion, or national origin.

Places of public accommodation include hotels and motels, restaurants and lunch counters, gas stations, movie theaters, and sports arenas.

Source 2 — Voting Rights Act of 1965, Section 2

(2) No voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure shall be imposed or applied by any State or political subdivision to deny or abridge the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color.

The act also suspended literacy tests in areas with low voter registration and sent federal examiners to register voters.

Source 3 — Black voter registration in four states

Source 1 — Executive Order 9981, signed by President Harry S. Truman, July 26, 1948

(1) WHEREAS it is essential that there be maintained in the armed services of the United States the highest standards of democracy, with equality of treatment and opportunity for all those who serve in our country's defense: …

(2) 1. It is hereby declared to be the policy of the President that there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion or national origin. This policy shall be put into effect as rapidly as possible, having due regard to the time required to effectuate any necessary changes without impairing efficiency or morale. …

Note: In 1948, Black and white troops served in separate units. The armed forces integrated many units during the Korean War (1950–1953), and in 1954 the Defense Department announced that its last all-Black units had been eliminated.

Source 2 — Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title VII, Section 703(a)

(3) It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer— … to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin; …

Note: Today Title VII covers most employers with 15 or more employees. The law also created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to investigate complaints.

Word help: effectuate = carry out; morale = the confidence and spirit of a group.

Source 1 — The Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955–1956)

(1) On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a 42-year-old seamstress and secretary of the Montgomery, Alabama, branch of the NAACP, refused a bus driver's order to give up her seat to a white passenger. She was arrested.

(2) On December 5, Black residents began refusing to ride the city's buses. They formed the Montgomery Improvement Association and chose a 26-year-old minister, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., as its president. Because Black riders made up most of the bus company's customers, the boycott cost the company heavily. People walked or shared rides in carpools. In January 1956, King's house was bombed; he urged his supporters not to answer with violence.

(3) Meanwhile, lawyers filed a federal lawsuit, Browder v. Gayle. In June 1956, a federal court ruled that bus segregation violated the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court upheld that ruling in November 1956. When the order arrived in Montgomery on December 20, 1956, the boycott ended after 381 days.

Source 2 — Summary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech (August 28, 1963)

The speech is protected by copyright, so it is summarized here rather than quoted.

(4) King spoke to about 250,000 people at the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. He began by recalling the Emancipation Proclamation, signed about one hundred years earlier. He said that a century later, Black Americans were still not truly free: they were held back by segregation and discrimination and lived in poverty in the middle of a wealthy nation.

(5) King compared the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution to a promise to pay, like a check, that the nation's founders had written to every American, guaranteeing the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. America, he said, had failed to honor that check for its Black citizens and had handed it back marked as having insufficient funds. But he refused to believe that the nation had run out of justice, and he said Black Americans had come to Washington to cash the check.

(6) King urged his listeners to keep struggling with dignity and discipline and never to turn to violence or hatred. He then described his dream of a nation where his four children would be judged by their character rather than by the color of their skin, and he closed by calling for freedom to ring from every part of the country.

The Fifteenth Amendment (1870) said the right to vote could not be denied "on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." Later amendments protected the voting rights of other groups.

(1) Nineteenth Amendment (ratified 1920) The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

(2) Twenty-fourth Amendment (ratified 1964), Section 1 The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.

(3) Twenty-sixth Amendment (ratified 1971), Section 1 The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.

(4) Background: A poll tax was a fee a person had to pay before voting. Because the tax did not mention race, it did not break the wording of the Fifteenth Amendment, but it kept many poor citizens, Black and white, from voting. In 1964, five Southern states still charged poll taxes. The Twenty-fourth Amendment covered only federal elections; in 1966, in Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections, the Supreme Court ruled that poll taxes in state elections were unconstitutional too.

(5) Background: Before 1971, most states set the voting age at 21. The Twenty-sixth Amendment was ratified during the Vietnam War, when supporters argued that if 18-year-olds could be drafted to fight, they should be allowed to vote.

Source 1 — Executive Order 9981, signed by President Harry S. Truman, July 26, 1948

(1) WHEREAS it is essential that there be maintained in the armed services of the United States the highest standards of democracy, with equality of treatment and opportunity for all those who serve in our country's defense: …

(2) 1. It is hereby declared to be the policy of the President that there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion or national origin. This policy shall be put into effect as rapidly as possible, having due regard to the time required to effectuate any necessary changes without impairing efficiency or morale. …

Note: In 1948, Black and white troops served in separate units. The armed forces integrated many units during the Korean War (1950–1953), and in 1954 the Defense Department announced that its last all-Black units had been eliminated.

Source 2 — Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title VII, Section 703(a)

(3) It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer— … to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin; …

Note: Today Title VII covers most employers with 15 or more employees. The law also created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to investigate complaints.

Word help: effectuate = carry out; morale = the confidence and spirit of a group.

In Brown v. Board of Education (May 17, 1954), the Supreme Court ruled that segregated public schools violated the Fourteenth Amendment. But the Court did not say how or when schools had to change. After hearing more arguments, it issued a second decision, often called Brown II*, on May 31, 1955. Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote both opinions.*

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1955)

(1) School authorities have the primary responsibility for elucidating, assessing, and solving these problems; courts will have to consider whether the action of school authorities constitutes good faith implementation of the governing constitutional principles. …

(2) … But it should go without saying that the vitality of these constitutional principles cannot be allowed to yield simply because of disagreement with them. …

(3) The judgments below, except that in the Delaware case, are accordingly reversed and the cases are remanded to the District Courts to take such proceedings and enter such orders and decrees consistent with this opinion as are necessary and proper to admit to public schools on a racially nondiscriminatory basis with all deliberate speed the parties to these cases.

Word help: remanded = sent back to a lower court; vitality = strength or force.

What happened next

(4) Many Southern politicians promised "massive resistance" to school integration. In September 1957, Arkansas governor Orval Faubus used the state's National Guard to keep nine Black students from entering Central High School in Little Rock. President Dwight D. Eisenhower then sent soldiers of the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division and placed the Arkansas National Guard under federal command. The soldiers escorted the students, who became known as the Little Rock Nine, into the school.

(5) Progress remained slow. Ten years after the first Brown decision, most Black students in the South still attended schools that were all Black.

Source 1 — Frederick Douglass, "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" Rochester, New York, July 5, 1852

Douglass, who had escaped from slavery, was invited to speak at a Fourth of July celebration.

(1) Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here to-day? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? …

(2) What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity …

Source 2 — Summary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail" (1963)

(3) In April 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was jailed in Birmingham, Alabama, for leading protests against segregation. A group of white clergymen had published a statement calling the demonstrations unwise and badly timed. They urged Black residents to stop protesting and rely on the courts instead.

(4) In his response, King explained why he would not wait. He argued that people have a moral duty to obey just laws and an equal duty to disobey unjust ones. A law is unjust, he wrote, when it degrades human beings or is forced on a group that had no voice in making it. He said nonviolent direct action, such as marches and sit-ins, was meant to create enough pressure that leaders would finally have to negotiate. He also pointed to the gap between the nation's founding promises of liberty and equality and the daily reality of segregation, noting that Black Americans had already waited more than 340 years for their rights.

Note: Source 2 is a summary written for this app; King's letter is not quoted.

Source 1 — Executive Order 9066, signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, February 19, 1942

Roosevelt signed this order about ten weeks after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

(1) Whereas the successful prosecution of the war requires every possible protection against espionage and against sabotage to national-defense material, national-defense premises, and national-defense utilities …

(2) … I hereby authorize and direct the Secretary of War, and the Military Commanders whom he may from time to time designate, whenever he or any designated Commander deems such action necessary or desirable, to prescribe military areas in such places and of such extent as he or the appropriate Military Commander may determine, from which any or all persons may be excluded, …

Note: The order did not name any ethnic group. Military commanders used it to remove about 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast, about two-thirds of them U.S. citizens, and to hold them in camps. In Korematsu v. United States (1944), the Supreme Court upheld the removal.

Source 2 — Civil Liberties Act of 1988, Section 2(a), signed by President Ronald Reagan, August 10, 1988

(3) The Congress recognizes that, as described by the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, a grave injustice was done to both citizens and permanent resident aliens of Japanese ancestry by the evacuation, relocation, and internment of civilians during World War II. As the Commission documents, these actions were carried out without adequate security reasons and without any acts of espionage or sabotage documented by the Commission, and were motivated largely by racial prejudice, wartime hysteria, and a failure of political leadership. …

(4) For these fundamental violations of the basic civil liberties and constitutional rights of these individuals of Japanese ancestry, the Congress apologizes on behalf of the Nation.

Note: The act also paid $20,000 to each surviving person who had been held.

Word help: espionage = spying; sabotage = deliberately damaging equipment or property.

(1) At the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848, women's rights activists demanded the right to vote. Progress was slow, and it came first in the West. Wyoming Territory gave women the vote in 1869, and Wyoming kept women's suffrage when it became a state in 1890.

(2) By the 1910s, the National American Woman Suffrage Association, led by Carrie Chapman Catt, was winning state campaigns one at a time. A smaller group, the National Woman's Party led by Alice Paul, used bolder tactics. Beginning in January 1917, its members picketed outside the White House, and many were arrested.

(3) The chart shows how many states gave women full voting rights in each period. (Some other states let women vote only in certain elections, such as for president or for school boards; the chart does not count those states.)

(4) Congress passed the Nineteenth Amendment on June 4, 1919. To become part of the Constitution, an amendment must be ratified by three-fourths of the states, and in 1919–1920 there were 48 states. On August 18, 1920, Tennessee became the final state needed to ratify it.

Source 1 — Executive Order 9066, signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, February 19, 1942

Roosevelt signed this order about ten weeks after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

(1) Whereas the successful prosecution of the war requires every possible protection against espionage and against sabotage to national-defense material, national-defense premises, and national-defense utilities …

(2) … I hereby authorize and direct the Secretary of War, and the Military Commanders whom he may from time to time designate, whenever he or any designated Commander deems such action necessary or desirable, to prescribe military areas in such places and of such extent as he or the appropriate Military Commander may determine, from which any or all persons may be excluded, …

Note: The order did not name any ethnic group. Military commanders used it to remove about 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast, about two-thirds of them U.S. citizens, and to hold them in camps. In Korematsu v. United States (1944), the Supreme Court upheld the removal.

Source 2 — Civil Liberties Act of 1988, Section 2(a), signed by President Ronald Reagan, August 10, 1988

(3) The Congress recognizes that, as described by the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, a grave injustice was done to both citizens and permanent resident aliens of Japanese ancestry by the evacuation, relocation, and internment of civilians during World War II. As the Commission documents, these actions were carried out without adequate security reasons and without any acts of espionage or sabotage documented by the Commission, and were motivated largely by racial prejudice, wartime hysteria, and a failure of political leadership. …

(4) For these fundamental violations of the basic civil liberties and constitutional rights of these individuals of Japanese ancestry, the Congress apologizes on behalf of the Nation.

Note: The act also paid $20,000 to each surviving person who had been held.

Word help: espionage = spying; sabotage = deliberately damaging equipment or property.

Source 1 — The Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955–1956)

(1) On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a 42-year-old seamstress and secretary of the Montgomery, Alabama, branch of the NAACP, refused a bus driver's order to give up her seat to a white passenger. She was arrested.

(2) On December 5, Black residents began refusing to ride the city's buses. They formed the Montgomery Improvement Association and chose a 26-year-old minister, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., as its president. Because Black riders made up most of the bus company's customers, the boycott cost the company heavily. People walked or shared rides in carpools. In January 1956, King's house was bombed; he urged his supporters not to answer with violence.

(3) Meanwhile, lawyers filed a federal lawsuit, Browder v. Gayle. In June 1956, a federal court ruled that bus segregation violated the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court upheld that ruling in November 1956. When the order arrived in Montgomery on December 20, 1956, the boycott ended after 381 days.

Source 2 — Summary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech (August 28, 1963)

The speech is protected by copyright, so it is summarized here rather than quoted.

(4) King spoke to about 250,000 people at the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. He began by recalling the Emancipation Proclamation, signed about one hundred years earlier. He said that a century later, Black Americans were still not truly free: they were held back by segregation and discrimination and lived in poverty in the middle of a wealthy nation.

(5) King compared the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution to a promise to pay, like a check, that the nation's founders had written to every American, guaranteeing the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. America, he said, had failed to honor that check for its Black citizens and had handed it back marked as having insufficient funds. But he refused to believe that the nation had run out of justice, and he said Black Americans had come to Washington to cash the check.

(6) King urged his listeners to keep struggling with dignity and discipline and never to turn to violence or hatred. He then described his dream of a nation where his four children would be judged by their character rather than by the color of their skin, and he closed by calling for freedom to ring from every part of the country.

In Brown v. Board of Education (May 17, 1954), the Supreme Court ruled that segregated public schools violated the Fourteenth Amendment. But the Court did not say how or when schools had to change. After hearing more arguments, it issued a second decision, often called Brown II*, on May 31, 1955. Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote both opinions.*

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1955)

(1) School authorities have the primary responsibility for elucidating, assessing, and solving these problems; courts will have to consider whether the action of school authorities constitutes good faith implementation of the governing constitutional principles. …

(2) … But it should go without saying that the vitality of these constitutional principles cannot be allowed to yield simply because of disagreement with them. …

(3) The judgments below, except that in the Delaware case, are accordingly reversed and the cases are remanded to the District Courts to take such proceedings and enter such orders and decrees consistent with this opinion as are necessary and proper to admit to public schools on a racially nondiscriminatory basis with all deliberate speed the parties to these cases.

Word help: remanded = sent back to a lower court; vitality = strength or force.

What happened next

(4) Many Southern politicians promised "massive resistance" to school integration. In September 1957, Arkansas governor Orval Faubus used the state's National Guard to keep nine Black students from entering Central High School in Little Rock. President Dwight D. Eisenhower then sent soldiers of the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division and placed the Arkansas National Guard under federal command. The soldiers escorted the students, who became known as the Little Rock Nine, into the school.

(5) Progress remained slow. Ten years after the first Brown decision, most Black students in the South still attended schools that were all Black.

Source 1 — The Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955–1956)

(1) On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a 42-year-old seamstress and secretary of the Montgomery, Alabama, branch of the NAACP, refused a bus driver's order to give up her seat to a white passenger. She was arrested.

(2) On December 5, Black residents began refusing to ride the city's buses. They formed the Montgomery Improvement Association and chose a 26-year-old minister, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., as its president. Because Black riders made up most of the bus company's customers, the boycott cost the company heavily. People walked or shared rides in carpools. In January 1956, King's house was bombed; he urged his supporters not to answer with violence.

(3) Meanwhile, lawyers filed a federal lawsuit, Browder v. Gayle. In June 1956, a federal court ruled that bus segregation violated the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court upheld that ruling in November 1956. When the order arrived in Montgomery on December 20, 1956, the boycott ended after 381 days.

Source 2 — Summary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech (August 28, 1963)

The speech is protected by copyright, so it is summarized here rather than quoted.

(4) King spoke to about 250,000 people at the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. He began by recalling the Emancipation Proclamation, signed about one hundred years earlier. He said that a century later, Black Americans were still not truly free: they were held back by segregation and discrimination and lived in poverty in the middle of a wealthy nation.

(5) King compared the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution to a promise to pay, like a check, that the nation's founders had written to every American, guaranteeing the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. America, he said, had failed to honor that check for its Black citizens and had handed it back marked as having insufficient funds. But he refused to believe that the nation had run out of justice, and he said Black Americans had come to Washington to cash the check.

(6) King urged his listeners to keep struggling with dignity and discipline and never to turn to violence or hatred. He then described his dream of a nation where his four children would be judged by their character rather than by the color of their skin, and he closed by calling for freedom to ring from every part of the country.

Source 1 — Executive Order 9981, signed by President Harry S. Truman, July 26, 1948

(1) WHEREAS it is essential that there be maintained in the armed services of the United States the highest standards of democracy, with equality of treatment and opportunity for all those who serve in our country's defense: …

(2) 1. It is hereby declared to be the policy of the President that there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion or national origin. This policy shall be put into effect as rapidly as possible, having due regard to the time required to effectuate any necessary changes without impairing efficiency or morale. …

Note: In 1948, Black and white troops served in separate units. The armed forces integrated many units during the Korean War (1950–1953), and in 1954 the Defense Department announced that its last all-Black units had been eliminated.

Source 2 — Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title VII, Section 703(a)

(3) It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer— … to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin; …

Note: Today Title VII covers most employers with 15 or more employees. The law also created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to investigate complaints.

Word help: effectuate = carry out; morale = the confidence and spirit of a group.

Source 1 — Executive Order 9066, signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, February 19, 1942

Roosevelt signed this order about ten weeks after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

(1) Whereas the successful prosecution of the war requires every possible protection against espionage and against sabotage to national-defense material, national-defense premises, and national-defense utilities …

(2) … I hereby authorize and direct the Secretary of War, and the Military Commanders whom he may from time to time designate, whenever he or any designated Commander deems such action necessary or desirable, to prescribe military areas in such places and of such extent as he or the appropriate Military Commander may determine, from which any or all persons may be excluded, …

Note: The order did not name any ethnic group. Military commanders used it to remove about 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast, about two-thirds of them U.S. citizens, and to hold them in camps. In Korematsu v. United States (1944), the Supreme Court upheld the removal.

Source 2 — Civil Liberties Act of 1988, Section 2(a), signed by President Ronald Reagan, August 10, 1988

(3) The Congress recognizes that, as described by the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, a grave injustice was done to both citizens and permanent resident aliens of Japanese ancestry by the evacuation, relocation, and internment of civilians during World War II. As the Commission documents, these actions were carried out without adequate security reasons and without any acts of espionage or sabotage documented by the Commission, and were motivated largely by racial prejudice, wartime hysteria, and a failure of political leadership. …

(4) For these fundamental violations of the basic civil liberties and constitutional rights of these individuals of Japanese ancestry, the Congress apologizes on behalf of the Nation.

Note: The act also paid $20,000 to each surviving person who had been held.

Word help: espionage = spying; sabotage = deliberately damaging equipment or property.

In Brown v. Board of Education (May 17, 1954), the Supreme Court ruled that segregated public schools violated the Fourteenth Amendment. But the Court did not say how or when schools had to change. After hearing more arguments, it issued a second decision, often called Brown II*, on May 31, 1955. Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote both opinions.*

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1955)

(1) School authorities have the primary responsibility for elucidating, assessing, and solving these problems; courts will have to consider whether the action of school authorities constitutes good faith implementation of the governing constitutional principles. …

(2) … But it should go without saying that the vitality of these constitutional principles cannot be allowed to yield simply because of disagreement with them. …

(3) The judgments below, except that in the Delaware case, are accordingly reversed and the cases are remanded to the District Courts to take such proceedings and enter such orders and decrees consistent with this opinion as are necessary and proper to admit to public schools on a racially nondiscriminatory basis with all deliberate speed the parties to these cases.

Word help: remanded = sent back to a lower court; vitality = strength or force.

What happened next

(4) Many Southern politicians promised "massive resistance" to school integration. In September 1957, Arkansas governor Orval Faubus used the state's National Guard to keep nine Black students from entering Central High School in Little Rock. President Dwight D. Eisenhower then sent soldiers of the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division and placed the Arkansas National Guard under federal command. The soldiers escorted the students, who became known as the Little Rock Nine, into the school.

(5) Progress remained slow. Ten years after the first Brown decision, most Black students in the South still attended schools that were all Black.

The Fifteenth Amendment (1870) said the right to vote could not be denied "on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." Later amendments protected the voting rights of other groups.

(1) Nineteenth Amendment (ratified 1920) The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

(2) Twenty-fourth Amendment (ratified 1964), Section 1 The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.

(3) Twenty-sixth Amendment (ratified 1971), Section 1 The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.

(4) Background: A poll tax was a fee a person had to pay before voting. Because the tax did not mention race, it did not break the wording of the Fifteenth Amendment, but it kept many poor citizens, Black and white, from voting. In 1964, five Southern states still charged poll taxes. The Twenty-fourth Amendment covered only federal elections; in 1966, in Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections, the Supreme Court ruled that poll taxes in state elections were unconstitutional too.

(5) Background: Before 1971, most states set the voting age at 21. The Twenty-sixth Amendment was ratified during the Vietnam War, when supporters argued that if 18-year-olds could be drafted to fight, they should be allowed to vote.