CIVIL RIGHTS ACTS

Federal legislation enacted by Congress over the course of a century beginning with the post-Civil War era that implemented and extended the fundamental guarantees of the Constitution to all citizens of the United States, regardless of their race, color, age, or religion.

The Civil Rights Acts of 1866 (14 Stat. 27) and 1870 (16 Stat. 140) were enacted to give newly freed slaves the same rights under federal law as those afforded to non-slaves. Such rights were the rights to sue and be sued, the rights to own real and personal property, and the rights to testify and present evidence in legal proceedings. Serious questions existed, however, as to the constitutionality of the 1866 act and to whether Congress actually had authority to enact such a measure. Subsequent to the passage of the fourteenth amendment in 1868, Congress reenacted the act pursuant to its power under the amendment to enforce the amendment through appropriate legislation. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 was, therefore, superseded by the civil rights Act of 1870.

In 1875 Congress passed a third Civil Rights Act (18 Stat. 336) in response to the refusal of many whites who owned public establishments, inns, railroads, and other facilities to make them equally available to blacks. The Civil Rights Act of 1875 prohibited racial discrimination in such places and guaranteed "full and equal enjoyment" of such places.

Violations of this act abounded and criminal prosecutions ensued. A number of convictions were appealed to the supreme court of the united states which in 1883 declared the act unconstitutional in the civil rights cases, 109 U.S. 3, 3 S. Ct. 18, 27 L. Ed. 835. The Court reasoned that the social rights that the act safeguarded were not civil rights and, therefore, Congress was powerless to legislate on the social conduct of private individuals. Following this decision, states began enacting segregation into various laws, the most notorious of which were the jim crow laws. It took more than eighty years before Congress would again attempt to legislate in this area.

The Civil Rights Acts of 1957 represented congressional recognition that the federal government had to bring about an end to racial discrimination. The civil rights commission was established and the laws guaranteed qualified voters the right to vote, regardless of their color. In the years 1964 to 1968 Congress enacted extensive and far-reaching legislation affording blacks equal status under the law, ranging from full and free enjoyment of public accommodations and facilities to the prohibition of racial discrimination in employment as well as transactions affecting housing in the United States.

The Civil Rights Act of 1991 granted to victims of unlawful discrimination the right to seek money damages, jury trials, and back pay.

cross-references

Civil Rights; "Civil Rights Act of 1964" (Appendix, Primary Document); Ku Klux Klan Act; "Voting Rights Act of 1965" (Appendix, Primary Document).

Civil Rights Acts (USA) There have been ten major US Civil Rights Acts, nine of which were passed in the period 1957–91. The Acts were aimed at equalizing the political conditions of African Americans and White Americans. The 1957 Act began the modern cycle by creating the Civil Rights Commission, the Civil Rights Division of the US Justice Department, and the procedure whereby federal courts could enforce the voting rights of US citizens against obstructions without jury trials of obstructers. Whereas before, White Americans who had prevented African Americans from voting were often acquitted by all-White juries, from now on voting-rights offenders were no longer tried by jury. This was followed by a 1960 Act which introduced criminal sanctions for racial violence and which reinforced voting-rights protection by the courts.

The landmark of civil rights legislation was the 1964 Act. In it, the federal government acquired powers to bar racial segregation and discrimination in federally funded programmes, and establishments serving interstate commerce. Racial discrimination in employment was outlawed and an Equal Opportunities Commission created to promote affirmative action. This also benefited women, who were now protected by law from discrimination based on gender. A Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965 which implemented the Twenty-Fifth Amendment outlawing voting restrictions based on poll taxes and literacy tests, and which resulted directly in a threefold increase in African American registration in the southern states.

A 1968 Act, passed in the wake of the King assassination, outlawed racial discrimination in all but 10 per cent of the then housing space (sale and rental), and struck against racialist agitation and violence against civil rights workers and demonstrations. A 1970 Act reinforced the provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, extending its scope for five years, establishing uniform federal election residence requirements, and lowering (unconstitutionally) the voting age to 18 in all elections. In 1991, a bill allowing class action suits against employers statistically biased against women or ethnic minorities was passed over President Bush's veto, but in 1994 the Supreme Court decided that the law did not enforce an employer's liability retroactively, and only had force from 1991.

civil rights movement; Warren, Earl

Force Act of 1871

Ross Rosenfeld

The Force Act of 1871 provided for federal scrutiny of congressional elections. The act, passed during the Ulysses S. Grant administration, was intended to prevent election fraud in Southern states during the Reconstruction era. The Force Act was sandwiched between the Enforcement Act of 1870, which established criminal penalties for interfering with an election, and the Enforcement Act of 1871, which permitted the suspension of habeas corpus. Intended to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment, the Force Act of 1871 was described as "an Act to enforce the rights of citizens of the United States to vote in the several states of this union." If a town or city had "upward of twenty thousand inhabitants," any two citizens of that town who wished to have an election "guarded and scrutinized" could request the regional U.S. Circuit Court to oversee it. In such cases the court was instructed to choose two bipartisan supervisors, who, under the court's protection, could regulate the election. The three acts are sometimes referred to collectively as the Enforcement Acts or the Force Acts.

Southern bigots responded to the Force Act with a wave of discriminatory actions, known as Jim Crow. Such policies as literacy tests and poll taxes (taxes for voting) still kept many blacks from voting. Some Southern states included measures prohibiting voting by blacks in their new constitutions. The Supreme Court did little to reverse this. In Giles v. Harris (1903) and Giles v. Teasley (1904), a black citizen challenged provisions such as these in the Alabama state constitution. The Supreme Court, however, ruled that it could not do anything about the provisions because they represented a "political question." It would take the Civil Rights movement, the Civil Rights Act, and the Voting Rights Act to put these matters to rest.

See also: Civil Rights Act of 1964; Voting Rights Act of 1965.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Hakim, Joy. A History of U.S. Reconstruction and Reform. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.

The Force Acts of 1870–1871. Northern Virginia Community College. <http://www.nvcc.edu/home/nvsageh/Hist122/Part1/ForceActsEx.htm>.

CIVIL RIGHTS RESTORATION ACT OF 1987

CIVIL RIGHTS RESTORATION ACT OF 1987 expanded the coverage of previously enacted federal statutes prohibiting discrimination in employment and other areas. By passing the Restoration Act, Congress overrode a presidential veto and overturned the 1984 Supreme Court decision in Grove City College v. Bell. In Grove City College, the Court had effectively gutted Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972, and by implication other antidiscrimination statutes, by holding that only those college programs directly receiving federal financial assistance, and not the college as a whole, had an obligation to not discriminate on the basis of sex. The purpose of the Restoration Act was to make clear that when any program or activity of an organization or entity—such as a college, medical center, or private contractor—receives federal funding, the entire organization or entity must comply with laws outlawing discriminatory practices based upon race, religion, color, national origin, gender, age, or disability. Thus, for example, if a college library receives a government grant to enable it to computerize, the entire college is required to comply with all federal civil rights laws. Similarly, a manufacturing company that makes airplane parts for the federal government must practice nondiscrimination in all of its other manufacturing operations as well. The Restoration Act effectively closed a number of significant loopholes in earlier civil rights statutes.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

"The Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987—A Defeat for Judicial Conservatism." National Black Law Journal 12 (Spring 1990): 61–72.

Graham, Hugh Davis. "The Storm Over Grove City College: Civil Rights Regulation, Higher Education, and the Reagan Administration." History of Education Quarterly 38, no. 4 (winter 1998): 407–429.

JackHandler/c. p.

See alsoCivil Rights Act of 1964 ; Civil Rights and Liberties ; Civil Rights Movement .

Civil Rights Acts (1866, 1870, 1875, 1957, 1960, 1964, 1968) US legislation. The Civil Rights Act (1866) gave African-Americans citizenship and extended civil rights to all persons born in the USA (except Native Americans). The 1870 Act was passed to re-enact the previous measure, which was considered to be of dubious constitutionality. In 1883, the US Supreme Court declared unconstitutional the 1870 law. The 1875 Act was passed to outlaw discrimination in public places because of race or previous servitude. The act was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court (1883–85), which stated that the 14th Amendment, the constitutional basis of the act, protected individual rights against infringement by the states, not by other individuals. The 1957 Act established the Civil Rights Commission to investigate violations of the 15th Amendment. The 1960 Act enabled court-appointed federal officials to protect black voting rights. An act of violence to obstruct a court order became a federal offence. The 1964 Act established as law equal rights for all citizens in voting, education, public accommodations and in federally assisted programmes. The 1968 Act guaranteed equal treatment in housing and real estate to all citizens.

Civil Rights Acts (1866, 1875, 1957, 1964) Legislation aimed at extending the legal and civil rights of the US Black population. The first Civil Rights Act of 1866 reversed the doctrine laid down by the DRED SCOTT decision of 1857 and bestowed citizenship on all persons born in the USA (except tribal Native Americans, not so treated until 1924). It also extended the principle of equal protection of the laws to all citizens. The provisions of the Act were reinforced by the FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT to the Constitution, but later decisions of the Supreme Court and lack of will on the part of administrators rendered them largely ineffective. For almost a century thereafter there were few effective federal attempts to protect the Black population against discrimination, and in the South in particular Black people remained persecuted second-class citizens. It was only a series of legislative acts commencing with the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and culminating in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which finally gave federal agencies effective power to enforce the rights of Black Americans.

Civil Rights Act a law passed by the Republican-dominated Congress on April 9, 1866, during Reconstruction to protect the rights of freed slaves and to guarantee equal rights to blacks. It was passed over a March 27 veto by President Andrew Johnson. The Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guaranteed the civil rights of all citizens regardless of race, was subsequently passed in 1868.