What protected the rights of African Americans?

What protected the rights of African Americans?

The 13th Amendment, which was ratified in 1865, abolished slavery. Three years later, the 14th Amendment provided blacks with citizenship and equal protection under the law. And in 1870, the 15th Amendment gave black American males the right to vote.

What American laws protect civil rights?

Civil rights are personal rights guaranteed and protected by the U.S. Constitution and federal laws enacted by Congress, such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.

How did the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protect the rights of African Americans?

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 hastened the end of legal Jim Crow. It secured African Americans equal access to restaurants, transportation, and other public facilities. It enabled blacks, women, and other minorities to break down barriers in the workplace.

What did the 1965 voting rights Act do?

This act was signed into law on August 6, 1965, by President Lyndon Johnson. It outlawed the discriminatory voting practices adopted in many southern states after the Civil War, including literacy tests as a prerequisite to voting.

Why did federal civil rights laws fail to protect African American rights?

Why did the 1st federal civil rights laws fail to protect African Americans’ rights? racism and prejudice were so deeply rooted that new constitutional amendments and federal laws were not enough to end discrimination. Separate Blacks from Whites while still being Constitutional under the separate but equal clause.

How does the Voting Rights Act protect the right to vote?

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a landmark piece of federal legislation in the United States that prohibits racial discrimination in voting. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the Act is considered to be the most effective piece of federal civil rights legislation ever enacted in the country.

How was the 14th Amendment undermined?

Important Supreme Court decisions that undermined these amendments were the Slaughter-House Cases in 1873, which prevented rights guaranteed under the Fourteenth Amendment’s privileges or immunities clause from being extended to rights under state law; and Plessy v.