ABSTRACT
Civil rights law and legislation in the United States goes back some 150 years, beginning with constitutional amendments (the 13th, 14th, and 15th) passed shortly after the end of the Civil War, and federal legislation passed in 1866 and 1875; through the 19th Amendment and Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Civil Rights Act of 1991. The federal government codified in our Constitution and these laws a strong set of values and principles for the equal protection of the laws and the rights of landed White males to fully participate in our democracy. It has been proclaimed that these principles applied to all people in the republic, yet we know that for most of our country’s history, they did not apply to women, the poor, enslaved or free Blacks, or native people. The civil rights laws and amendments to the Constitution had—and have—clear prohibitions against discrimination based on race and other classes of historically oppressed and underrepresented people, many of whom were at one time slaves or property and others who were second-class citizens. 1
