CHAPTER 4 - CIVIL RIGHTS

The International Brotherhood of sleeping car porters

though not well remembered today were one of the most important groups promoting civil rights in the U.S. during the middle part of the 20th century during the time leading right up to the 1950's when we tend to think of great revolution in civil rights especially for African Americans.

-sleeping car porters was particularly important because of this role and took this role very seriously. (Book-UP from the Rails)

Missouri Compromise

Compromise of 1850

Dred Scott

Civil Liberties

- the Constitution's protections from government power.

- Government may not take these away.

Freedom of speech

Freedom of religion

The right to privacy

- Typically violations of these liberties occur when some government agency, at any level, oversteps its authority.

(Constitutional and legal protections from government interference with personal rights and freedoms such as freedom of assembly, speech, and religion)

Civil Rights

-Represent those protections by government

power.

-They require governments to act, whereas civil liberties are well served when government does nothing.

-Things that government must secure on behalf of its citizens.

-In colonial times civil rights equaled "civic" rights; clearly what they fought for during the Revolutionary War.

(The powers or privileges that are conferred on citizens by the Constitution and the courts and that entitle them to make claims upon the government. Civil rights protect individuals from arbitrary or discriminatory treatment at the hands of the government)

Also include the rights of individuals in their relation with others:

-to live free from bondage and intimidation,

-to enter into contracts and own property,

-to have access to businesses that serve the public,

-to enjoy equal educational opportunities and more.

Amendment

Thirteenth Amendment 1865

Fourteenth Amendment 1868

Fifteenth Amendment 1870

Fourteenth Amendment

The Fourteenth Amendment introduced a straightforward definition of citizenship that included former slaves.

-All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.

-Big debate over whether "birthright citizenship" applies to everyone born in the US or just those here legally.

-Provides due process and equal protection under the law.

-The 14th Amendment's Due Process Clause is the justification for applying the Bill of Rights to the States.

The Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment says that no state can deny "Life, Liberty, and Property without due process of law."

The application of the due process clause, by suggesting that particular civil liberties are those referred to by the 14th Amendment is called INCORPORATION.

Why Did Reconstruction Ultimately Fail?

a)

-The myth of progress

-More rights for African Americans in 1877 than in 1900.

-Jim Crow Laws: Segregation and Voting

-White Primary—No blacks were allowed to be Democrats

-Poll Tax

-Property Requirements

-Literacy Tests

-Grandfather Clause exempted Whites

-Not every black person was barred from voting—just nearly

-Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)--separate but equal" doctrine

-Restrictions on African American rights.

-Democrats in the North Depended on Black Voters.

-Democrats in the South Depended on the Disenfranchisement of Black Voters.

-This Gave African Americans Traction in their Fight for Civil Rights.

-The 1948 Democratic Convention

-NAACP Litigation Strategy

-Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka

-Civil Rights Act of 1957

-The Civil Rights Movement did not start in the 1950s or 1960s. It was just more successful

-Rosa Parks—did you hear about her in the debate (I know it was almost 3 hour in)'

-Direct Action (protesting)

-The Civil Rights Act of 1964

-The Election of 1964

-The Voting Rights Act of 1965

-Social and Economic Equality

-Busing: de facto vs. de jure segregation

-Affirmative Action

-Court Cases

-Women's Rights

-Gay Rights

-Immigrants

The Disabled

-Discrimination (The Equal Rights Amendment)

-Empowerment: Laws

-Laws against sexual relations: sodomy laws

-19th Amendment in 1920:

Worked immediately (actually most women were allowed to vote before the 19th Amendment)

Laws against sexual relations: sodomy laws

Laws against marriage: DOMA

Adoption, Property transfer, ability to discriminate in hiring

Obergefell v. Hodges (2015)

BOOK DEFINITION

Affirmative Action

Policies or programs designed to expand opportunities for minorities and women and usually requiring that an organization take measures to increase the number or proportion of minorities and women in its membership or employment

Black Codes

Laws enacted by southern legislatures after the Civil War that prevented former slaves from voting and holding certain jobs, among other prohibitions

de Facto Segregation

Segregation that results from practice rather than from law

de Jure Segregation

Segregation enacted into law and imposed by the government

Fugitive Slave Law

The 1850 law compelling northerners to honor southerners' property claims to slaves, passed in return for the South's agreeing to admit California as a free state (and hence lose its ability to block legislation in the Senate)

Grandfather Clauses

Statutes stating that only those people whose grandfather had voted before Reconstruction could vote, unless they passed a literacy or wealth test. After the Civil War this mechanism was used to disenfranchise African Americans

Hate Crime

A violent crime directed against individuals, property, or organizations solely because of the victims' race, gender, national origin, or sexual orientation

Jim Crow Laws

A series of laws enacted in the late nineteenth century by southern states to institute segregation. These laws created "whites only" public accommodations such as schools, hotels, and restaurants

Literacy Test

A legal barrier used to exclude African Americans from voting. Local white registrars would require prospective black voters to read and interpret arcane passages of the state's constitution. Since few satisfied these registrars' rigorous demands, by 1910 fewer than 10 percent of black men were voting in the South

Nominating Convention

A political convention used to select a candidate to run in an upcoming election

Poll Tax

A tax imposed on people when they register to vote. In the decades after the Civil War this tax was used primarily to disenfranchise black voters. With passage of the Twenty-Fourth Amendment, in 1964, it became unconstitutional

Quotas

Specific shares of college admissions, government contracts, and jobs set aside for population groups that have suffered from past discrimination. The Supreme Court has rejected the use of quotas wherever it has encountered them

Racial Profiling

Identifying the suspects of a crime solely on the basis of their race or ethnicity

Segregation

The political and social practice of separating whites and blacks into dual and highly unequal schools, hospitals, prisons, public parks, housing, and public transportation

Separate but Equal Doctrine

The Supreme Court-initiated doctrine that separate but equivalent facilities for African Americans and whites are constitutional under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment

Suffragists

Women who campaigned in the early twentieth century for the right of women to vote

White Primary

A practice that permitted political parties to exclude African Americans from voting in primary elections. Because historically in the South winning the Democratic primary was tantamount to winning the general election, this law in effect disenfranchised black voters in southern states

CHAPTER SUMMARY

The distinction between civil liberties

—the Constitution's protections from government power—and civil rights—protections provided by the government against the arbitrary actions of others—has important implications for collective action.

Civil liberties are protected as long as government does not overstep its authority.

Those seeking civil rights instead must overcome large collective action problems in order to get government to take action to protect them.

The long struggle of African Americans

to achieve political equality with Whites illustrates the manner in which civil rights have historically been denied and won.

Under the Constitution, national majorities opposing slavery and racial discrimination found it difficult to prevail over entrenched opposition in Southern states.

Opponents of civil rights for African Americans were defeated only by the ascension of overwhelming governing majorities or through armed conflict.

While the motives of civil rights leaders

have often been altruistic, advancing the cause has often required proponents to appeal to the political or economic interests of the majority.

Prior to the Civil War, for example, politicians formed antislavery majorities by appealing to Northern Whites' fears of expanding competition from slave labor, not the principle of political equality.

Following Reconstruction, civil rights languished as Northern Democrats needed Southern support to retain power. With the massive relocation of African Americans to Northern cities in the 20th century, Northern Democrats became more receptive to African American voters.

The civil rights movement was a well-organized

sustained campaign for achieving political equality.

Early efforts focused on a litigation strategy, yielding landmark decisions like Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka in 1954 but little change in the status quo.

Civil rights leaders changed tactics in the 1960s, seeking to pressure elected officials with demonstrations designed to attract media attention.

These efforts led to passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which brought about fundamental change by shifting the burden for protecting civil rights from individual plaintiffs to federal authorities.

Momentum has slowed since,

as society has struggled with how to counter the effects of past discrimination.

At the same time, the successes of the civil rights movement for African Americans have helped pave the way politically for many other groups facing discrimination.

QUIZ

Answer Location: What Are Civil Rights?

Civil liberties are best described as:

. the Constitution's protections "from" government power.

Answer Location: What Are Civil Rights?

Civil rights are protections the government secures on behalf of its citizens.

TRUE

Answer Location: The Civil Rights of African Americans

The history of Black civil rights depended on

. configuring politics to allow society's competing interests to check one another.

Answer Location: What Are Civil Rights?

Madison, who recognized that people act most forcefully when they have a stake in the outcome, believed tyranny could best be avoided by empowering every faction to look out for its own interests.

TRUE

Civil rights in colonial times roughly amounted to protections against arbitrary action by the distant British Crown and can be thought of as:

civic rights.

Answer Location: The Civil Rights of African Americans

The reservation of power to the states to determine voting eligibility and the fragmented constitutional system are two major obstacles faced by African Americans in securing civil rights.

TRUE

Answer Location: The Civil Rights of African Americans

People do not engage in costly behavior without some expected return. Madison, recognizing that citizens and politicians alike act most forcefully when they have a personal stake in the outcome, believed that tyranny could best be avoided by empowering every faction to look out for its own interests. The problem for African Americans was:

. they were a faction without the capacity to defend themselves.

Answer Location: The Civil Rights of African Americans

The effort to secure civil rights rested less on making formal rules—which Madison noted had little impact on intemperate majorities—and more on configuring politics to allow society's competing interests to check one another.

TRUE

Answer Location: Missouri Compromise

Which of the following was the rationale behind the Missouri Compromise of 1820?

. The parties compromised so the balance in the Senate between free and slave states would be maintained.

Answer Location: The Height of Slavery: 1808-1865

The fugitive slave law is an example of a compromise the South used with the admittance of California into the Union. They lost the ability to block legislation in the Senate, but Northerners would have to honor southerners' property claims to slaves.

TRUE

Answer Location: The Height of Slavery: 1808-1865

Which of the following was responsible for the collapse of the Missouri compromise?

. the underground railroad

Answer Location: Civil Rights

Civil rights and the defense of civil rights are terms coined only for African Americans.

.False

Answer Location: The Height of Slavery: 1808-1865

Which of the following is true about the Dred Scott v. Sanford decision?

. The Court concurred that the federal government could not prevent slavery in the territories.

Answer Location: Current Civil Rights Policy

Affirmative action refers to a policy that required those employers and schools that had practiced past discrimination to compensate minorities (and subsequently, women) by giving them special consideration in hiring and school admissions.

TRUE

Answer Location: The Height of Slavery: 1808-1865

Which of the following statements is true?

. The first half-century of racial politics in the United States closely followed Madison's prediction of tyranny in the states unconstrained by national majorities.

The Democratic administration's high-profile sponsorship of civil rights laws led to its emergence as a major campaign issue in the 1964 presidential election.

TRUE

Answer Location: The Height of Slavery: 1808-1865

The commitment of northern Republicans to Reconstruction in the South waned after which of the following?

. An economic recession led to many Republican losses in the 1874 election.

Answer Location: The Voting Rights Act of 1965

The 1965 Voting Rights Act authorized the Justice Department, under certain circumstances, to send federal officers into communities to directly register voters. Madison would have objected to this policy under his goal of preventing a national veto power over state laws.

FALSE

Answer Location: Current Civil Rights Policy

The difference between de facto segregation and de jure segregation is that:

. de facto segregation is not mandated by law, de jure segregation is mandated by law.

Answer Location: The Era of Remedial Action: 1970s to the Present

Affirmative action represents a policy that required employers and schools that had practiced past discrimination to compensate minorities (and subsequently, women) by giving them special consideration in hiring and school admissions.

TRUE

Answer Location: Current Civil Rights Policy

Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978) found that the admission quota system used in implementing affirmative action policies:

. violated the equal protection clause in the constitution

Answer Location: Current Civil Rights Policy

The Fair Housing Act of 1968 outlawed refusal to rent or sell housing on grounds of race or religion, but exempted citizens who rented or sold their homes without using a real estate agent.

TRUE

Answer Location: Equal Rights for Women: The Right to Vote

Early feminists called themselves "suffragists" because:

. one important issue for them was campaigning for the vote

Answer Location: Emergence of a Civil Rights Coalition: 1940s-1950s

Despite the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka case, Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, was not integrated until the early 1980s.

FALSE

Answer Location: Emergence of a Civil Rights Coalition: 1940s-1950s

The Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka is most notable for which of the following reasons?

. It struck down the separate but equal doctrine established by Plessy v. Ferguson.

Answer Location: Emergence of a Civil Rights Coalition: 1940s-1950s

Smith v. Allwrightresulted in the end of White primary laws because race was the primary criterion for discrimination the laws violated the Fifteenth Amendment.

TRUE

Answer Location: The Civil Rights Movement: 1960s

As a result of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which of the following happened?

. Both voter registration and election to office increased dramatically for African Americans

Answer Location: Current Civil Rights Policy

Affirmative Action policies require the hiring, admission, or promotion of a minority over a non-minority in areas with a history of discrimination despite qualifications.

FALSE

Answer Location: The Civil Rights Movement: 1960s

Which of the following helped the civil rights movement overcome their collective action problems when the switched from a litigation strategy to one of mass mobilization?

. Black southern preachers

Answer Location: Challenging Tyranny

The Democratic party took advantage of a change in public opinion during the 1960s to become the party of civil rights.

TRUE

Answer Location: Emergence of a Civil Rights Coalition: 1940s-1950s

Which of the following is an example of the NAACPs concern over long-standing Supreme Court doctrine requiring that plaintiffs prove a law's discriminatory intent rather than simply demonstrate a bias in its effect?

. poll tax

Answer Location: Civil Rights

The additional airport screening of Arab-looking males following 9/11 is an example of racial profiling.

TRUE

Answer Location: The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments

Reconstruction can best be characterized as:

. a partisan purpose put forth by the Republican Party.

Answer Location: The Civil Rights Movement: 1960s

The collective action problems faced by the civil rights movement involved too many participants and too few resources.

FALSE

Answer Location: The Jim Crow Era and Segregation: 1877-1933

In addition to excluding African Americans, the White primary effectively disenfranchised African Americans because of which of the following?

The South was solidly Democratic, so winning the Democratic primary was the same as winning the election.

Answer Location: The Height of Slavery: 1808-1865

The underground railroad was a network of abolitionists who hid slaves and provided them transportation northward and out of slavery.

TRUE

Answer Location: Rights for Hispanics

Which of the following describes the 1970 extension of the Voting Rights Act?

. Ballots be available in Spanish where at least 5% of the population is Hispanic.

Answer Location: The Jim Crow Era and Segregation 1877-1933

Plessy v. Ferguson established on a national level the separate but equal doctrine, which officially sanctioned segregation throughout the South

TRUE

Answer Location: The Civil Rights Movement: 1960s

Black Southern Preachers emerged as leaders in the civil rights movement and helped overcome the collective action problem the movement encountered in shifting strategy from litigation to mass demonstrations

TRUE

Answer Location: The Civil Rights Movement: 1960s

Local police chief, Eugene "Bull" Connor, made Birmingham an appealing area for a protest because it would provide a graphic display of the institutional violence that enforced segregation.

TRUE

Answer Location: What Are Civil Rights?

The difference between civil liberties and civil rights is which of the following?

. Civil liberties are the Constitution's protections "from" government power, civil rights are the Constitution's protections provided "by" government power.

Answer Location: What Are Civil Rights?

Civil rights require governments to act, whereas civil liberties are well served when the government does nothing.

TRUE

Answer Location: Civil Rights

______ occurs when law enforcement officers identify suspects primarily on the basis of race or ethnicity.

. Racial profiling

Answer Location: The Civil Rights of African Americans

It was difficult for African Americans to secure civil rights because national majorities found it difficult to control the federal government due to:

separation of powers among three branches of government.

Answer Location: Gay Rights

The Supreme Court ruled in Romer v. Evans that Colorado law violated the ______ clause of the Constitution.

equal protection

Answer Location: Gay Rights

In 2009, Congress expanded federal hate crimes protections to cover gays.

TRUE

Answer Location: The Civil Rights Movement: 1960s

How did the civil rights movement solve the collective action problem when they shifted from litigation to mass demonstration in their strategy?

. emerge of key leaders

Answer Location: The Politics of Black Civil Rights

Which of the following amendments granted former slaves the right to vote (though it would be another century before they could fully access this right)?

15

Answer Location: The Jim Crow Era and Segregation 1877-1933

Laws that institutionalized segregation in public parks, restrooms, and housing (among other places) are examples of:

Jim Crow laws

Answer Location: What Are Civil Rights?

Voting is an example of a civil right

TRUE