Student's Guide to Landmark Congressional Laws on Civil Rights

by Pohlmann, Marcus D.

• ISBN13: 9780313313851
• ISBN10: 0313313857
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-10-30
• Publisher: Greenwood Pub Group

Summary

The Declaration of Independence stated that all men are created equal, yet the long and continuing struggle for civil rights in the United States seems to indicate otherwise. This reference guide details the most critical civil rights laws in U.S. history, moving from the period of slavery, to the Civil War, to the Reconstruction, to the civil rights era of the mid- to late-20th century. An overview essay introduces each period, and 36 individual laws are examined in essays placing the bills in their historical contexts. Each law is then presented in an edited and, when appropriate, annotated form, so students can read and understand the actual words of the law. Many of the notable and notorious laws in U.S. legislative history have come in the area of civil rights. Among these are the Fugitive Slave Act, the Missouri Compromise, the Emancipation Proclamation, the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Acts of 1965. This uncommonly helpful guide to U.S. civil rights legislation also includes timelines, a bibliography, and an index.

Author Biography

MARCUS D.POHLMANN is currently the chairman of the Department of Political Science at Rhodes College. He has published widely in the field of African-American Politics, including Black Politics in Conservative America and Racial Politics at the Crossroads.LINDA VALLAR WHISENHUNT is Legal Fellow in the Richard W. Riley Institute of Government Politics and Public Leadership at Furman University where she instructs students in trial advocacy. She is also of counsel to the law frim of Douglas A. Churdar, P.C., and has practiced in the area of labor and employment law.

Table of Contents

Series Foreword	xi
John R. Vile
Acknowledgments	xv
Introduction	xvii
Timeline	xxiii
Part I: The Slavery Period	1	(68)
Articles of Confederation (1776)	3	(5)
Declaration of Independence (1776)	8	(5)
Northwest Ordinance (1787)	13	(3)
United States Constitution (1787)	16	(6)
Fugitive Slave Act (1793)	22	(5)
Slave Importation Act (1807)	27	(8)
Missouri Compromise (1820)	35	(5)
Compromise of 1850 (1850)	40	(6)
Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854)	46	(6)
Constitution of the Confederate States of America (1861)	52	(4)
Confiscation Acts (1861 and 1862)	56	(6)
Emancipation Proclamation (1863)	62	(7)
Part II: Postwar Reconstruction	69	(60)
Freedmen's Bureau (1865)	71	(7)
Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (1865)	78	(4)
Civil Rights Act (1866)	82	(3)
Reconstruction Act (1867)	85	(7)
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (1868)	92	(10)
Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (1870)	102	(4)
Enforcement Act (1870)	106	(9)
Klan Act (1871)	115	(8)
Civil Rights Act (1875)	123	(6)
Part III: Civil Rights Era	129	(146)
Executive Order 8802 (1941)	133	(6)
Executive Order 9808 (1946)	139	(6)
Executive Order 9980 (1948)	145	(7)
Executive Order 9981 (1948)	152	(5)
Executive Order 10730 (1957)	157	(6)
Civil Rights Act (1957)	163	(10)
Civil Rights Act (1960)	173	(10)
Executive Order 10925 (1961)	183	(11)
Executive Order 11053 (1962)	194	(5)
Executive Order 11063 (1962)	199	(8)
Twenty-Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution (1964)	207	(3)
Civil Rights Act (1964)	210	(25)
Voting Rights Act (1965)	235	(15)
Executive Order 11246 (1965)	250	(11)
Fair Housing Act (1968)	261	(14)
Bibliography	275	(2)
Index	277