Legal Background of Civil Rights

Equal Protection Clause 14 th Amendment of the Constitution (1868)  “no state shall make or enforce any law which shall [...] deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, [...] nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”  It is interpreted as imposing a general restraint on the government's power to classify people Everyone is equal under the law Everyone is equal under the law

Jim Crow Laws Throughout the late 1800’s, nearly ½ of states passed racial segregation laws  Intended to separate people based on race  Segregated public & private facilities: schools, parks, playgrounds, hotels, restaurants & water fountains

Jim Crow Laws Throughout the late 1800’s, nearly ½ of states passed racial segregation laws  Intended to separate people based on race  Segregated public & private facilities: schools, parks, playgrounds, hotels, restaurants & water fountains Jim Crow laws were made illegal after passage of Civil Rights Act of 1964

De jure v. De facto Segregation “De jure” segregation or discrimination: “of the law”  States actually enacted laws that legally oblige facilities to segregate  Ex: public buses, public water fountains  Civil Rights Act of 1964 officially outlawed “de jure” segregation “De facto” segregation: “in fact” In practicality (if not literally) Segregation or discrimination by custom Can you think of an example?

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) Question before the Court was whether a Louisiana law providing for separate railway cars for whites and blacks violated the equal protection clause of Constitution Court ruled that segregation was permitted if facilities were equal  Cemented the legal foundation for the doctrine of "separate but equal"  Constitutional basis for Jim Crow laws

Opinions The object of the [Fourteenth] amendment was undoubtedly to enforce the absolute equality of the two races before the law, but in the nature of things it could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color, or to enforce social, as distinguished from political, equality.... If one race be inferior to the other socially, the Constitution of the United States cannot put them upon the same plane. — Justice Henry Billings Brown, majority opinion Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. — Justice John Marshall Harlan, dissenting

Brown v. Board 1954 Marshall (NAACP pro-integration attorney) Thurgood Marshall– leading NAACP counsel Oliver Hill of Virginia worked as chief counsel (in favor of integration) on one of the cases that was eventually rolled into Brown v. Board Earl Warren- Chief Justice of Supreme Court Wrote opinion: “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal”

Voter Discrimination

15 Amendment Post Civil War amendment “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 race, color, or previous condition of servitude” Why then were African-Americans still being “discriminated” against at the polls as late as the 1960s?  And how were they being discriminated against?