List of landmark African-American legislation

This is a list of landmark legislation, court decisions, executive orders, and proclamations in the United States significantly affecting African Americans.

Congressional Legislation

Bills not passed

Lodge Fair Elections bill (1890)
Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill (1921)
Costigan-Wagner antilynching bill (1934)
Wagner-Gavagan antilynching bill (1940)

Bills signed into law

Ordinance of 1787: The Northwest Territorial Government ("Northwest Ordinance")
Fugitive Slave Law of 1793
An Act to prohibit the importation of slaves 1807
Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 – Made any federal marshal or other official who did not arrest an alleged runaway slave liable to a fine of $1,000
Missouri Compromise (1850) – Series of Congressional legislative measures addressing slavery and the boundaries of territories acquired during the Mexican–American War (1846–1848)
Kansas–Nebraska Act (1854)
Enrollment Act (Conscription) – Resulted in Draft Riots in several American cities. Noted for the devastating loss of life and property among African-Americans in New York City
Civil Rights Act of 1866 – Declared that all persons born in the United States were now citizens, without regard to race, color, or previous condition
Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands (1866)
Reconstruction Act – A series of four acts provided for the division of all former Confederate states into five military districts; Each district would be headed by a military commander, who was charged with ensuring that the states would create new constitutions and ratify the Fourteenth Amendment
Southern Homestead Act of 1866
Naturalization Act of 1870 – Allowed persons of African descent to become citizens of the United States
Enforcement Act of 1870 – enacted 31 May 1870
Enforcement Act of 1871 – enacted February 1871
Enforcement Act of 1871 Also known as the Ku Klux Klan Force Act. It was the third enforcement act passed by Congress. The act gave the United States President the power to suspend the writ of habeas corpus to combat the Ku Klux Klan and other white terrorist organizations during the Reconstruction Era.
Amnesty Act (1872)
Civil Rights Act of 1875
Posse Comitatus Act (1878)
Morrill Land Grant Colleges Act (1890) – Required each state to show that race was not an admissions criterion, or else to designate a separate land-grant institution for persons of color. Among the seventy colleges and universities which eventually evolved from the Morrill Acts are several of today's Historically Black colleges and universities
Racial Integrity Act of 1924
Civil Rights Act of 1957
Civil Rights Act of 1960
Civil Rights Act of 1964
Economic Opportunity Act of 1964
Voting Rights Act of 1965
Civil Rights Act of 1968
Civil Rights Act of 1982
Civil Rights Act of 1991

U.S. Constitutional Amendments

Federal court and court decisions

Federal courts

United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit

Decisions

Prigg v. Pennsylvania (1842)
Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857)
Slaughterhouse Cases (1873)
United States v. Cruikshank (1876)
United States v. Reese (1876)
Strauder v. West Virginia (1880)
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
Williams v. Mississippi (1898)
Cumming v. Richmond County Board of Education (1899)
Guinn v. United States (1915)
Nixon v. Herndon (1927)
Nixon v. Condon (1932)
Powell v. Alabama (1932)
Grovey v. Townsend (1935)
Breedlove v. Suttles (1937)
Gaines v. Canada (1938)
New Negro Alliance v. Sanitary Grocery Co. (1938)
Lane v. Wilson (1939)
Chambers v. Florida (1940)
Smith v. Allwright (1944)
Shelley v. Kraemer (1948)
McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents (overturned low court decision by same name) (1950)
Sweatt v. Painter (1950)
Henderson v. United States (1950)
Brown v. Board of Education - composed of four cases arising from states and a related federal case arising from the District of Columbia
- Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County (1951) - the case arising from Virginia
- Briggs v. Elliott (1952) - the case arising from South Carolina
- Gebhart v. Belton (1952) - the case arising from Delaware
- Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954) - the case arising from Kansas
- Bolling v. Sharpe (1954) - a related case arising from Washington, D.C.
Lucy v. Adams (1955)
NAACP v. Alabama (1958)
Gomillion v. Lightfoot (1960)
Boynton v. Virginia (1960)
Baker v. Carr (1962)
Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States (1964)
McLaughlin v. Florida (1964)
New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964)
Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections (1966)
South Carolina v. Katzenbach (1966)
Loving v. Virginia (1967)
Jones v. Mayer (1968) - A United States Supreme Court case which held that Congress could regulate the sale of private property in order to prevent racial discrimination
Green v. School Board of New Kent County (1968)
Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education (1971)
Milliken v. Bradley (allowed for interdistrict integration) (1974)

Executive Orders and Proclamations

Emancipation Proclamation (1862) - Issued by President Abraham Lincoln. It declared that all slaves in Confederate territory still in rebellion were freed.
Executive Order 8802 (1942) - Issued by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. It banned racial discrimination in government departments and defense industries. It also established Fair Employment Practice Committee directed to oversee compliance with the order.
Executive Order 9908 (1946)
Executive Order 9980 (1948)
Executive Order 9981 (1948) - Issued by President Harry S. Truman. It desegregated the armed forces.
Executive Order 10577 (1954)
Executive Order 10590 (1955) - Issued by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. It established the President's Committee on Government Employment Policy. It aimed to eliminate discrimination in federal hiring.
Executive Order 10925 (1961) - Issued by President John F. Kennedy. It established the President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity, which later became the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and requires equal opportunity in placement and promotion in the U.S. military.
Executive Order 11063 (1962) - Issued by President John F. Kennedy. It banned segregation in federally funded housing.
Executive Order 11114 (1963)
Executive Order 11246 (1965) - Issued by President Lyndon B. Johnson. It prohibited discrimination in employment decisions on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
Executive Order 11478 (1969) - Issued by President Richard M. Nixon. It prohibited discrimination on certain grounds in the competitive service of the federal civilian workforce, including the United States Postal Service and civilian employees of the United States Armed Forces.

Federal bureaucracy

Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands (June 1865 through December 1868)
Fair Employment Practice Committee (1941)
President's Committee on Civil Rights (December 1946 through December 1947)
Civil Rights Commission (created 1957)
Civil Rights Division in the Department of Justice (created 1957)
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (created 1964)
Head Start (created 1965)
National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (created 1967)

Important Organizations and Individuals

References

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