The Four Amendments

Four amendments were ratified and placed in the Constitution to give Blacks their Civil Rights. The first amendment that was placed in the Constitution was Amendment 13 which was ratified in 1865 just as the Civil War came to an end. The Civil War was against the Union (North) and the Confederacy (South) over slavery and the North won. Amendment 13 abolished slavery from the United States freeing the slaves. Amendment 14 was placed in the Constitution in 1868. This amendment made Blacks United States citizens. Amendment 14 overruled the Dred Scott decision which ruled that Blacks were property not United States citizens. The only way for a Supreme Court decision to be overruled is an amendment. Amendment 15 was ratified in 1870. This Amendment …show more content…
President Abraham Lincoln was the President during the Civil War (1861-1865). In 1863 President Lincoln wrote the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing the slaves in the South. Yet the war was still ongoing. In order to enforce this proclamation, Lincoln as commander in chief, sent the United States military in order to give Blacks their freedom. In 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent the National Guard to Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Where nine Black teenagers were trying to integrate into a White school, but State Officials were blocking this integration. President Eisenhower was enforcing the Brown Supreme Court decision. In 1954 Brown V Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas came to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Brown, meaning that all public schools would be integrated. President John F. Kennedy’s executive staff wrote the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This act integrated public businesses. The act was a response to the civil rights movement reaching its defining moment. One example was the March on Washington led by Dr. King in the summer of 1963. The March on Washington consisted of about 250,000 people wanting civil rights. Kennedy also sent the National Guard to the University of Alabama and the University of Mississippi in response to civil rights demonstrations. Sadly Kennedy was killed in 1963, a year before the civil rights act was passed. Lyndon B. …show more content…
Dred Scott, who was a slave in Missouri. His owner took Scott to the state of Illinois, a free state. Scott worked and lived in Illinois till his owner took him back to Missouri. Scott claimed that since he lived and worked in the North where slavery didn’t exist, he should be free. He sued his owner and took the case to the Supreme Court in 1857. The Supreme Court case was named Dred Scott versus Sandford. The Supreme Court Judges ruled against Scott. They determine that since Dred Scott wasn’t a citizen but property. Dredd Scott, couldn’t even bring the case to the Supreme Court. The Court also explains that individuals who ancestors were citizens when the constitution was adopted qualified as citizens. This ruling wasn’t overruled till Amendment 14 in 1868 making Blacks United States citizens. Plessy versus Ferguson was a Supreme Court case in 1896. Plessy who was 1/8 Black boarded a train in Louisiana. Plessy sat in the White’s only section of the train car. He broke Jim Crow laws and was arrested. Jim Crow Laws are that there must be separate facilities for Blacks and Whites. Plessy toke this to the Supreme where they ruled against Plessy. They clarified that to keep peace and order, Blacks and Whites must be separate. They also said that Whites would never accept Blacks. Blacks were segregated for 50 years till Brown V