1870, AND 1871 ARE USUALLY CALLED THERACE AND ETHNICITY DEVELOPE...
1866, 1870, and 1871 are usually called the
race and ethnicity developed with the first
Reconstruction Civil Rights Acts. The provi-
arrivals of each alien group. Thus, the Chinese,
sions of these acts are both civil and criminal in
Japanese, Italians, Jews, Hispanics, Vietnamese,
nature, and several of these statutes have
Somalis, and other groups have encountered
assumed great importance in modern civil
hostility and bias when they have tried to find
rights
LITIGATION
. The most important of these
jobs or places to live. Since the 1960s, federal
statutes, 42 U.S.C.A. § 1983, provides that any
CIVIL
RIGHTS
laws and U.S.
SUPREME
COURT
person who under
COLOR
OF
LAW
subjects
decisions have sought to combat illegal discrim-
another individual to the deprivation of any
ination based on race or ethnicity.
federal right shall be liable to the injured party
In the aftermath of the Civil War, Radical
in an action at law or in equity. A similar
Republicans in the Congress were determined
provision in the federal criminal code imposed
to protect the civil rights of blacks. They enacted
penal sanctions against persons who willfully
the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth
Amendments partially out of concern that
engage in such conduct (18 U.S.C.A. § 242).
232 RACIAL AND ETHNIC DISCRIMINATIONThe modern
CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
began
The federal government ceased to enforce
with the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott in
these and other Reconstruction statutes in the
Southern states after federal
MILITARY OCCUPATION
1955 and 1956, led by Rev. Dr.
MARTIN LUTHER
ended in 1876. African Americans lost their
KING JR
. King
’s approach, which centered on
nonviolent
CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE
, was met by public
right to vote and were excluded from juries as
and private resistance in the South. In the 1960s,
the white power structure reasserted control of
Congress responded by enacting a series of laws
the political and legal systems in the South. In
designed to end discrimination based on race
addition, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down
and ethnicity: the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (42
civil rights laws, including a broad statute that
U.S.C.A. § 2000e et seq.), the
VOTING RIGHTS ACT
barred racial discrimination in public transpor-
tation and accommodations, in large part
OF
1965 (42 U.S.C.A. § 1973 et seq.), and the
FAIR
because the court perceived a dangerous tilt in
HOUSING ACT OF
1968 (42 U.S.C.A. § 3601 et seq.).
The Supreme Court found these acts constitu-
the federal-state power relationship. By the end
tional, which signaled federal dominance over
of the nineteenth century, the court had made
matters previously thought to be within the
clear that it favored giving the states more
scope of state and local governments.
power than the federal government in regulat-
ing the actions of their citizens. The 1896
As of 2003, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is
decision in
PLESSY V
.
FERGUSON