All Posts Tagged With: "discrimination"
Doc of the Day: Executive Order 8802
On June 25, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802. The order banned discrimination against racial and ethnic minorities in the government and defense industries. The order resulted in part from pressure placed on Roosevelt by the African American labor leader A. Philip Randolph. Earlier in 1941 Randolph had announced plans for a [...]
25Jun2009 | mdblogger | 0 comments | Continued
Doc of the Day: Nineteenth Amendment
On August 18, 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified. The amendment legalized women’s suffrage in the United States. Susan B. Anthony, the author of the amendment, did not live to see Congressional passage or ratification of her proposal. Her death in 1906 followed a long career as a suffragist and general [...]
18Aug2008 | mdblogger | 1 comment | Continued
Charles L. Zelden on the Voting Rights Act of 1965
August 6 is the 43rd anniversary of the signing into law of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Designed to combat race-based (and as later amended, ethnic-based) discrimination in voting, the act has proven to be one of the most successful pieces of civil rights legislation ever adopted. In fact, one can argue that the [...]
6Aug2008 | mdblogger | 0 comments | Continued
Doc of the Day: Voting Rights Act of 1965
On August 6, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law. The act employed various measures and procedures to restore suffrage to excluded minority voters in the South and later in the nation as a whole. In doing this, the Voting Rights Act permitted, and even required, the federal government to [...]
6Aug2008 | mdblogger | 0 comments | Continued
Doc of the Day: Executive Order 9981
On July 26, 1948, President Harry Truman issued Executive Order 9981. The purpose of the order was twofold. One purpose was to declare that it would be the policy of the United States to provide equality of opportunity for members of the armed forces without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin. In this [...]
26Jul2008 | mdblogger | 0 comments | Continued
Doc of the Day: July 9
On July 9, 1868, the states ratified the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. (Ratification was declared in a certificate by the secretary of state on July 28.) The Fourteenth Amendment extended citizenship and rights to the freed slaves and excluded many prominent former Confederates from government. It revised the formula for congressional reapportionment and [...]
9Jul2008 | mdblogger | 0 comments | Continued
Doc of the Day: July 2
On July 2, 1862, the Morrill Act was passed by Congress. The act bears the name of its creator, the Vermont Republican representative Justin Smith Morrill. Passed during the Civil War, the act marked the beginning of the federal government’s involvement in public higher education. With it, Congress gave each state thirty thousand acres of [...]
2Jul2008 | mdblogger | 0 comments | Continued
Doc of the Day: June 28
On June 28, 1978, the Supreme Court announced its decision in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke. This case was the first important U.S. Supreme Court decision to test Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, prohibiting racial discrimination in public education and other endeavors receiving federal funds. The Court held that while [...]
28Jun2008 | mdblogger | 0 comments | Continued
Doc of the Day: June 26
On June 26, 2003, the Supreme Court announced its decision in Lawrence v. Texas. In this decision, the Court struck down a Texas statute criminalizing oral and anal sex by consenting adults and held that the right to liberty under the due process clause gives consenting adults the full right to engage in private sexual [...]
26Jun2008 | mdblogger | 0 comments | Continued
Doc of the Day: June 25
On June 25, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802, banning discrimination in the government and defense industries. Roosevelt’s order was the first significant presidential action on behalf of African American civil rights since Reconstruction.
25Jun2008 | mdblogger | 0 comments | Continued