Civil Rights Movement

Background

Under the U.S. Constitution, civil rights are afforded to persons by reason of citizenship or personhood and include rights to free speech, freedom of the press, voting, due process, and equal protection of the laws. Discrimination occurs, in part, when these rights are denied. In order to prevent such discrimination, Congress has passed statutes recognizing these rights, while the Supreme Court has decided cases focused on these areas.

Court Cases

During the civil rights movement, opponents of segregation made continuing efforts to challenge it through the courts. Although the Supreme Court focused on equal rights broadly, this entry highlights major cases in particular, because they paved the road to the civil rights movement. In its 1857 decision in Dred Scott v. Sanford, the Supreme Court held that because slaves did not become free when they were taken into free states, they lacked the right to file judicial actions. The Court also maintained that Congress could not bar slavery from territories and that Blacks could not become citizens. Frederick Douglass, an African American abolitionist, commented that although the outcome was very troublesome, it gave him high hopes. Specifically, Douglass believed that the national conscience would overwhelmingly reject this problematic situation.

In Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), the Supreme Court determined that facilities for African Americans could be “separate but equal,” setting a precedent that lasted until 1954, when the Supreme Court decided the case of Brown v. Board of Education, Topeka. The Court's ruling in Brown that separate was inherently unequal began a tide of litigation, legislation, and resistance that defined the civil rights movement.

Constitutional Rights and Civil Rights Legislation

Civil rights are protected primarily through the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution and through congressional enactment of a variety of statutes. The Thirteenth Amendment, adopted in 1865, abolished slavery in the United States. The Fourteenth Amendment prohibited any state from depriving any person of “life, liberty, or property without due process of law” and from denying “to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws” In addition, Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment gave Congress the power to pass any laws needed for its enforcement. The Fifteenth Amendment banned race-based voting qualifications.

Along with constitutional amendments, Congress passed civil rights statutes during the Reconstruction era after the Civil War. Two of the most noteworthy were Section 1981, which protects one from discrimination based on race in contracts and when participating in lawsuits (42 U.S.C. § 1981), and the Civil Rights Act of 1971, more commonly known as Section 1983 [Page 89](42 U.S.C. § 1983). Section 1983 protects individuals whose civil rights have been violated by individuals who were acting under color of state law.

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