History of civil rights in the United States

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Civil rights in the United States include noted legislation and organized efforts to abolish public and private acts of racial discrimination against Native Americans, African Americans, Asians, Latin Americans, women, the homeless, minority religions, and other groups since the independence of the country.

Contents

Background

Many events took place between 1776 and 1866. Some of them include:

Slavery in the United States (1776–1866)

An animation showing when United States territories and states forbade or allowed slavery, 1789-1861 US Slave Free 1789-1861.gif
An animation showing when United States territories and states forbade or allowed slavery, 1789–1861

The institution of slavery in the United States existed since the colonial era when the Atlantic slave trade led to the importation of roughly 450,000 enslaved Africans to various European colonies in North America. After the United States was founded in 1776, slavery continued to exist on a widespread scale in the American South. Since the colonial era, an abolitionist movement existed to oppose American slavery, culminating in the abolition of enslavement in the U.S. during the Civil War.[ citation needed ]

Racial segregation in the United States

Racial segregation follows two forms;

Frederick Douglass and James N. Buffum

In 1841, Frederick Douglass and his friend James N. Buffum entered a train car reserved for white passengers in Lynn, Massachusetts. When the conductor ordered them to leave the car, they refused. Following the action, widespread organizing led Congress to approve the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which granted equal rights to Black citizens in public accommodations. In 1883, the Supreme Court overturned this victory, declaring it unconstitutional in the Civil Rights Cases of 1883. [2] [3]

Elizabeth Jennings Graham

On July 16, 1854, Elizabeth Jennings Graham, a 24-year-old schoolteacher, opted to board a bus without the "Colored Persons Allowed" sign, and the conductor used force to expel her. [4]

Charlotte L. Brown

In 1863, San Francisco's horse-powered streetcar companies only accepted white passengers. On April 17, 1863, Charlotte L. Brown, an African American citizen began to challenge this discrimination directly and boarded a streetcar of the Omnibus Railroad Company. She was forced off and she tried to do it two more times, but the outcome was the same. Each time she legally sued the company. [5]

Demand for women's suffrage in the United States

The demand for women's suffrage began to gather strength in the 1840s, emerging from the broader movement for women's rights. In 1848, the Seneca Falls Convention, the first women's rights convention, passed a resolution in favor of women's suffrage despite opposition from some of its organizers, who believed the idea was too extreme. By the time of the first National Women's Rights Convention in 1850, however, suffrage was becoming an increasingly important aspect of the movement's activities. [6]

Movement for civil rights (1865–1896)

The civil rights movement (1865–1896) aimed to eliminate racial discrimination against African Americans, improve their educational and employment opportunities, and establish their electoral power just after the abolition of slavery in the United States. The period from 1865 to 1895 saw tremendous change in the fortunes of the Black community following the elimination of slavery in the South.

End of slavery in the United States of America

The Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order issued by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863. In a single stroke, it changed the legal status, as recognized by the U.S. government, of three million enslaved people in designated areas of the Confederacy from "slave" to "free". It had the practical effect that as soon as an enslaved person escaped the control of the Confederate government by running away or through advances of the federal Union Army, the enslaved person became legally and, in effect, free. Plantation owners, realizing that emancipation would destroy their economic system, sometimes moved the people they enslaved as far as possible out of reach of the Union army. By June 1865, the Union Army controlled all of the Confederacy and liberated all designated enslaved people. [7]

Civil Rights Act of 1866

The Civil Rights Act of 1866 was the first United States federal law to define citizenship and affirm that all citizens are equally protected by the law. [8] In the wake of the American Civil War, the Act was mainly intended to protect the civil rights of persons of African descent born in or brought to the United States. [9]

The Act was passed by Congress in 1865 and vetoed by United States President Andrew Johnson. In April 1866, Congress again passed the bill to support the Thirteenth Amendment, and Johnson again vetoed it, but a two-thirds majority in each chamber overrode the veto to allow it to become law without a presidential signature. John Bingham and other congressmen argued that Congress did not yet have sufficient constitutional power to enact this law. Following the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868, Congress ratified the 1866 Act in 1870. In 1871, they passed the US Civil Rights Act of 1871, also known as the Klan Act. In 1875, the Civil Rights Act of 1875 became law. [10]

Katherine "Kate" Brown

Katherine Brown boarded a train in Alexandria, Virginia, when traveling towards Washington, D.C., on February 8, 1868. Brown entered "what they call the white people's car." As she was boarding, a railroad policeman told her to move to a different car. She replied, "This car will do." He told her the car she had entered "was for ladies," and "no damned nigger was allowed to ride in that car anyhow; never was and never would be." The railroad police officer and another employee grabbed Brown and, after a violent struggle that lasted six minutes, in which she was beaten and kicked, threw her on the boarding platform, dragged her along the platform, and threatened to arrest her. She asked, "What are you going to arrest me for? What have I done? Have I committed robbery? Have I murdered anybody?" Brown's injuries were so severe that she was bedridden for several weeks and spit up blood from hemorrhages in her lungs. Railroad Company v. Brown (1873), U.S. Senate (June 17, 1868).

Senators Charles Sumner and Justin Morrill called for a formal investigation, and Senator Charles Drake agreed. [11] A resolution was passed on February 10, and a Senate committee heard testimony later that month. Brown sued the railway company for damages and was awarded $1,500 in damages in the district court. The railway company appealed, and the case eventually went before the US Supreme Court. On November 17, 1873, in an opinion delivered by Justice David Davis, the Court held that racial segregation on the railroad line was not allowed under its Congressional charter, which stated "no person shall be excluded from the cars on account of race." Davis dismissed the company's "separate but equal" argument as "an ingenious attempt to evade a compliance with the obvious meaning of the requirement" of the 1863 charter and decided in favor of Brown. [12]

The Court held that white and Black passengers must be treated with equality in the use of the railroad's cars:

It was the discrimination in the use of the cars on account of color where slavery obtained which was the subject of discussion at the time, and not the fact that the colored race could not ride in the cars at all. Congress, in the belief that this discrimination was unjust, acted. It told this company in substance that it could extend its road within the District as desired, but that this discrimination must cease and the colored and white race, in the use of the cars, be placed on an equality. This condition it had the right to impose, and in the temper of Congress at the time, it is manifest the grant could not have been made without it. [13]

Movement for civil rights from 1896 to 1954

The civil rights movement (1896–1954) was a long, primarily nonviolent series of events to bring full civil rights and equality under the law to all Americans. The era has had a lasting impact on American society – in its tactics, the increased social and legal acceptance of civil rights, and its exposure of the prevalence and cost of racism. [14]

Women's suffrage in the United States

Women's legal right to vote was established in the United States over the course of more than half a century, first in various states and localities, sometimes on a limited basis, and then nationally in the Nineteenth Amendment of 1920. [6]

Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is an international document adopted by the United Nations General Assembly that enshrines the rights and freedoms of all human beings. It was accepted by the General Assembly as Resolution 217 during its third session on 10 December 1948 at the Palais de Chaillot in Paris, France. [15]

A foundational text in the history of human and civil rights, the Declaration consists of 30 articles detailing an individual's "basic rights and fundamental freedoms" and affirming their universal character as inherent, inalienable, and applicable to all human beings. [15] Adopted as a "common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations", the UDHR commits nations to recognize all humans as being "born free and equal in dignity and rights" regardless of "nationality, place of residence, gender, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, language, or any other status". [16]

The Declaration is considered a "milestone document" for its "universalist language", which makes no reference to a particular culture, political system, or religion. [17] [18] It directly inspired the development of international human rights law and was the first step in the formulation of the International Bill of Human Rights, which was completed in 1966 and came into force in 1976. The United States of America has ratified the nine binding treaties influenced by the Declaration. [19]

Civil rights movement 1954–1968

The 1954–1968 civil rights movement [lower-alpha 1] in the United States was preceded by a decades-long campaign by African Americans and their like-minded allies to end legalized racial discrimination, disenfranchisement, and racial segregation in the United States. The movement has origins in the Reconstruction era during the late 19th century, although it made its largest legislative gains in the 1960s after years of direct actions and grassroots protests. The social movement's major nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience campaigns eventually secured new protections in federal law for the human rights of all Americans. [20]

End of racial segregation in the United States

De jure segregation was outlawed by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968. [21] In specific areas, however, segregation was barred earlier by the Warren Court in decisions such as the Brown v. Board of Education decision that overturned school segregation in the United States. [6]

Civil rights in the 21st century

De facto segregation continues today in areas such as residential segregation and school segregation because of both contemporary behavior and the historical legacy of de jure segregation. [22] [1]

Eradication of homelessness has also been a major problem in the United States. In 2010, 1,593,150 individuals experienced homelessness. [23] [24] The COVID-19 pandemic forced state governments to mandate lockdowns and thousands of companies to close business temporarily or permanently. This left them without resources to pay the salary of their employees, in some cases forcing them to close business permanently and being evicted. Millions of Americans lost their jobs and were unable to pay the rent, 7 million faced eviction in October 2021.

Various laws have both, directly and indirectly, criminalized people that are homeless [25] and people attempting to feed homeless people outdoors. [26] At least 31 cities have criminalized feeding people that are homeless. [27] [28] [29]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ The social movement has also been called the American civil rights movement, the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, the African-American civil rights movement, the Afro-American civil rights movement, the American freedom movement, the black civil rights movement, the black revolution, the black rights movement, the civil rights revolution, the modern civil rights movement, the Negro American revolution, the Negro freedom movement, the Negro movement, the Negro revolt, the Negro revolution, the Second Reconstruction, the Southern freedom movement, the United States civil rights movement and the U.S. civil rights movement. The term civil rights struggle can denote this or other social movements that occurred in the United States during the same period. The social movement's span of time is called the civil rights era.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Human rights</span> Fundamental rights belonging to all humans

Human rights are moral principles, or norms, for certain standards of human behaviour and are regularly protected as substantive rights in substantive law, municipal and international law. They are commonly understood as inalienable, fundamental rights "to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being" and which are "inherent in all human beings", regardless of their age, ethnic origin, location, language, religion, ethnicity, or any other status. They are applicable everywhere and at every time in the sense of being universal, and they are egalitarian in the sense of being the same for everyone. They are regarded as requiring empathy and the rule of law, and imposing an obligation on persons to respect the human rights of others; it is generally considered that they should not be taken away except as a result of due process based on specific circumstances.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution</span> 1865 Reconstruction amendment

The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. The amendment was passed by the Senate on April 8, 1864, by the House of Representatives on January 31, 1865, and ratified by the required 27 of the then 36 states on December 6, 1865, and proclaimed on December 18. It was the first of the three Reconstruction Amendments adopted following the American Civil War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Universal Declaration of Human Rights</span> Declaration adopted in 1948 by the UN General Assembly

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is an international document adopted by the United Nations General Assembly that enshrines the rights and freedoms of all human beings. Drafted by a UN committee chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt, it was accepted by the General Assembly as Resolution 217 during its third session on 10 December 1948 at the Palais de Chaillot in Paris, France. Of the 58 members of the United Nations at the time, 48 voted in favour, none against, eight abstained, and two did not vote.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights</span> Treaty adopted by United Nations General Assembly in 1965

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) is a multilateral treaty that commits nations to respect the civil and political rights of individuals, including the right to life, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, electoral rights and rights to due process and a fair trial. It was adopted by United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2200A (XXI) on 16 December 1966 and entered into force on 23 March 1976 after its thirty-fifth ratification or accession. As of June 2022, the Covenant has 173 parties and six more signatories without ratification, most notably the People's Republic of China and Cuba; North Korea is the only state that has tried to withdraw.

Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896), was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision ruling that racial segregation laws did not violate the U.S. Constitution as long as the facilities for each race were equal in quality, a doctrine that came to be known as "separate but equal". The decision legitimized the many state laws re-establishing racial segregation that had been passed in the American South after the end of the Reconstruction era in 1877. Such legally enforced segregation in the south lasted into the 1960s.

The Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3 (1883), were a group of five landmark cases in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments did not empower Congress to outlaw racial discrimination by private individuals. The holding that the Thirteenth Amendment did not empower the federal government to punish racist acts done by private citizens would be overturned by the Supreme Court in the 1968 case Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co. The Fourteenth Amendment not applying to private entities, however, is still valid precedent to this day. Although the Fourteenth Amendment-related decision has never been overturned, in the 1964 case of Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States, the Supreme Court held that Congress could prohibit racial discrimination by private actors under the Commerce Clause, though that and other loose interpretations of the Clause to expand federal power have been subject to criticism.

Separate but equal was a legal doctrine in United States constitutional law, according to which racial segregation did not necessarily violate the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which nominally guaranteed "equal protection" under the law to all people. Under the doctrine, as long as the facilities provided to each race were equal, state and local governments could require that services, facilities, public accommodations, housing, medical care, education, employment, and transportation be segregated by race, which was already the case throughout the states of the former Confederacy. The phrase was derived from a Louisiana law of 1890, although the law actually used the phrase "equal but separate".

Racial equality is when people of all races and ethnicities are treated in an egalitarian/equal manner. Racial equality occurs when institutions give individuals legal, moral, and political rights. In present-day Western society, equality among races continues to become normative. Prior to the early 1960s, attaining equality was difficult for African, Asian, and Indigenous people. However, in more recent years, legislation is being passed ensuring that all individuals receive equal opportunities in treatment, education, employment, and other areas of life. Racial equality can refer to equal opportunities or formal equality based on race or refer to equal representation or equality of outcomes for races, also called substantive equality.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">African-American history</span>

African-American history started with the arrival of Africans to North America in the 16th and 17th centuries. Former Spanish slaves who had been freed by Francis Drake arrived aboard the Golden Hind at New Albion in California in 1579. The European colonization of the Americas, and the resulting Atlantic slave trade, led to a large-scale transportation of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic; of the roughly 10–12 million Africans who were sold by the Barbary slave trade, either to European slavery or to servitude in the Americas, approximately 388,000 landed in North America. After arriving in various European colonies in North America, the enslaved Africans were sold to white colonists, primarily to work on cash crop plantations. A group of enslaved Africans arrived in the English Virginia Colony in 1619, marking the beginning of slavery in the colonial history of the United States; by 1776, roughly 20% of the British North American population was of African descent, both free and enslaved.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anti-discrimination law</span> Legislation designed to prevent discrimination against particular groups of people

Anti-discrimination law or non-discrimination law refers to legislation designed to prevent discrimination against particular groups of people; these groups are often referred to as protected groups or protected classes. Anti-discrimination laws vary by jurisdiction with regard to the types of discrimination that are prohibited, and also the groups that are protected by that legislation. Commonly, these types of legislation are designed to prevent discrimination in employment, housing, education, and other areas of social life, such as public accommodations. Anti-discrimination law may include protections for groups based on sex, age, race, ethnicity, nationality, disability, mental illness or ability, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity/expression, sex characteristics, religion, creed, or individual political opinions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Judicial aspects of race in the United States</span>

Legislation seeking to direct relations between racial or ethnic groups in the United States has had several historical phases, developing from the European colonization of the Americas, the triangular slave trade, and the American Indian Wars. The 1776 Declaration of Independence included the statement that "all men are created equal", which has ultimately inspired actions and legislation against slavery and racial discrimination. Such actions have led to passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution of the United States.

The following outline is provided as an overview of and introduction to rights:

The right to freedom from discrimination is internationally recognised as a human right and enshrines the principle of egalitarianism. The right to freedom from discrimination is recognised in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and enshrined in international human rights law through its inclusion in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws introduced in the Southern United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that enforced racial segregation, "Jim Crow" being a pejorative term for an African American. Such laws remained in force until 1965. Formal and informal segregation policies were present in other areas of the United States as well, even as several states outside the South had banned discrimination in public accommodations and voting. Southern laws were enacted by white-dominated state legislatures (Redeemers) to disenfranchise and remove political and economic gains made by African Americans during the Reconstruction era. Such continuing racial segregation was also supported by the successful Lily-white movement.

The Declaration of Human Duties and Responsibilities (DHDR) was written for reinforcing the implementation of human rights under the auspices of the UNESCO and the interest of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and was proclaimed in 1998 "to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)" in the city of Valencia. Therefore, it is also known as the Valencia Declaration.

The Second Emancipation Proclamation is the term applied to an envisioned executive order that Martin Luther King Jr. and other leaders of the Civil Rights Movement called on President John F. Kennedy to issue. As the Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order issued by President Abraham Lincoln to free all slaves being held in states at war with the Union, the envisioned "Second Emancipation Proclamation" was to use the powers of the executive office to strike a severe blow to segregation.

Transport and bus boycotts in the United States were protests against the racial segregation of transport services. These occurred before the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which outlawed such forms of discrimination.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">End of slavery in the United States</span> Review of the topic

From the late-18th to the mid-19th century, various states of the United States allowed the enslavement of human beings, most of whom had been transported from Africa during the Atlantic slave trade or were their descendants. The institution of chattel slavery was established in North America in the 16th century under Spanish colonization, British colonization, French colonization, and Dutch colonization.

Civil rights have been part of the Constitution of the United States of America, but in order to be received equally by all the population required to made amendments to the United States Constitution, this allowed to end of slavery with the Civil Rights Act of 1866, followed by women's suffrage, among other rights,

References

  1. 1 2 3 Copied content from Racial segregation in the United States
  2. ↑ "Transportation Protests: 1841–1992".
  3. ↑ Copied content from Frederick Douglass
  4. ↑ Copied content from Elizabeth Jennings Graham
  5. ↑ Copied content from Charlotte L. Brown
  6. 1 2 3 Copied content from Women's suffrage in the United States
  7. ↑ Copied content from Slavery in the United States
  8. ↑ White, Deborah (2012). Freedom on My Mind. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's. p. 391. ISBN   978-0312648848.
  9. ↑ Civil Rights Act of 1866
  10. ↑ Copied content from Civil Rights Act of 1866
  11. ↑ "The Kate Brown Story". Senate.gov. United States Senate. Retrieved 4 November 2022.
  12. ↑ Railroad Company v. Brown, 84 U.S. 445 (1873); US Supreme Court Case, Justia.com
  13. ↑ 84 U.S. 445 at 452–53
  14. ↑ Copied content from Civil rights movement (1896–1954)
  15. 1 2 "Human Rights Law". www.un.org. 2015-09-02. Retrieved 2020-08-20.
  16. ↑ UDHR Booklet, Art. 2.
  17. ↑ "Universal Declaration of Human Rights". www.amnesty.org. Retrieved 2020-08-20.
  18. ↑ "Human Rights: The Universal Declaration vs The Cairo Declaration". Middle East Centre. 2012-12-10. Retrieved 2020-08-20.
  19. ↑ Copied content from Universal Declaration of Human Rights
  20. ↑ Copied content from Civil rights movement
  21. ↑ Judy L. Hasday, The Civil Rights Act of 1964: An End to Racial Segregation (2007).
  22. ↑ Krysan, Maria; Crowder, Kyle (2017). Cycle of Segregation: Social Processes and Residential Stratification. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. ISBN   978-0871544902.
  23. ↑ "Current Statistics on the Prevalence and Characteristics of People Experiencing Homelessness in the United States" (PDF). Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. May 10, 2007. Archived from the original (PDF) on May 10, 2007.
  24. ↑ "How Many People Experience Homelessness?". nationalhomeless.org. Retrieved August 2, 2011.
  25. ↑ Barbara Ehrenreich (August 10, 2011) "How America criminalised poverty" The Guardian
  26. ↑ Baylen Linnekin (June 9, 2012) "Bans on Feeding the Homeless Are Discriminatory and Unconstitutional" Reason.org
  27. ↑ Robbie Couch (November 3, 2014). Fort Lauderdale Passes Law That Restricts Feeding Homeless People. The Huffington Post. Retrieved November 9, 2014.
  28. ↑ Richard Luscombe (November 5, 2014). 90-year-old among Florida activists arrested for feeding the homeless. The Guardian. Retrieved November 9, 2014.
  29. ↑ Copied content from Homelessness in the United States
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