Judicial aspects of race in the United States
Encyclopedia
Race legislation in the United States is defined as legislation seeking to direct relations between so-called "races" (a social construct) or ethnic groups. It has had several historical phases in the United States, developing from the European colonization of the Americas
, the triangular slave trade, and the Indian Wars
. The 1776 Declaration of Independence
included the statement that "all men are created equal
," which has ultimately inspired actions and legislation against slavery
, and racial discrimination. It led to passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the United States Constitution.
The first period extends until the Civil War
and the Reconstruction era, the second spans the nadir of American race relations
period through the early 20th century; the last period begins with World War II and the following increased civil rights movement
, leading to the repeal of racial segregation
laws. Race legislation has been intertwined with immigration laws, which sometimes included specific provisions against particular nationalities or ethnicities (i.e. Chinese Exclusion Act or 1923 United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind
case).
, slavery was legal, and the Naturalization Act of 1790
limited naturalization to aliens who were "free white persons" and thus left out indentured servant
s, slaves, free African-Americans, and later Asian-Americans. In addition, many states enforced anti-miscegenation laws
(e.g. Indiana
in 1845), which prohibited marriage between whites and non-whites, that is, blacks, mulatto
es, and in some states also Native Americans
. After an influx of Chinese immigrants, marriage between whites and Asians was in some states also banned.
Fugitive slave laws
were enacted by Congress in 1793 and 1850 to provide for the return of slaves who had escaped from a slave state
to a free state or territory. Black Codes
were adopted by several states. In some states the Black Codes were incorporated into, or required by, the state constitution, many of which were rewritten in the 1840s. Article 13 of Indiana
's 1851 constitution stated "No Negro or Mulatto shall come into, or settle in, the State, after the adoption of this Constitution." The 1848 constitution of Illinois
led to one of the harshest Black Code systems in the nation before the Civil War. The Illinois Black Code of 1853 extended a complete prohibition against black immigration into the state.
The Indian Removal Act
of 1830 legalized deportation of Native Americans to the West, a policy known as "Indian removal
," while the Indian Intercourse Act
of 1837 created the Indian Territory
. Blood quantum laws
determined membership in Native American
groups, also deprived of citizenship
. Reservations
were created with the Indian Appropriations Act
s in the 1850s. The Dawes Act
of 1887 registered members of the so-called "Five Civilized Tribes
" and included privatization
of common holdings of American Indians. Some of its measures were repealed with the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act
, allowing a return to local self-government. Citizenship was not granted to Native Americans until the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924
.
The victory of the North during the Civil War led to the abolition of slavery with the Thirteenth Amendment
and an expansion of the civil rights of African-Americans with the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment
. The Fourteenth Amendment also overturned the Dred Scott
case of 1857, in which the Supreme Court
ruled that people of African descent, whether they were enslaved or free, could not be citizens of the United States. The Fifteenth Amendment
prohibited disenfranchisement
on the basis of race. The Naturalization Act of 1870
concerned itself with naturalization of people of African descent.
. There was increasing racial violence
in the South, lynchings and attacks to intimidate blacks and repress their voting. After regaining power in the state legislatures in the 1870s, white Democrats passed legislation to impose electoral requirements that effectively disfranchised black voters. From 1890-1910, Southern states ratified constitutional amendments or new constitutions that increased requirements for voter registration, which resulted in disfranchising most blacks and many poor whites (as in Alabama.) With political control in what was effectively a one-party system, they passed Jim Crow laws
and instituted racial segregation
in public facilities. In 1896, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the defendants in the Plessy v. Ferguson
case, which established the "separate but equal
" interpretation of provision of services. Without the vote, however, black residents in the South found their segregated facilities consistently underfunded, and they were without recourse in the legal system, as only voters could sit on juries or hold office. They were closed out of the political process in most states. In 1899, the Cumming v. Richmond County Board of Education
case ended in the legalization of segregation in schools.
Anti-miscegenation laws
prohibited marriages of English people with Africans (blacks), and in some states also with Native Americans and Asians. Such laws were first passed during the Colonial era in several of the Thirteen Colonies
, starting with Virginia in 1691. After the American Revolutionary War
, several of the newly independent states repealed such laws. However, all the slave states and many free states enforced such laws in the Antebellum era.
During Reconstruction, when biracial Republican
coalitions controlled the legislatures, several Southern states repealed anti-miscegenation laws. As Democrats returned to power, between 1870 and 1884, Southern legislatures passed anti-miscegenation laws in all the states of the Confederacy to re-establish white supremacy.
In addition, western states newly admitted to the Union after the Civil War passed anti-miscegenation laws laws, often directed against marriages between Europeans and Asians (the increasing immigrant population), as well as prohibiting marriages with blacks and Native Americans. For instance, Utah
's marriage law had an anti-miscegenation component passed in 1899; it was repealed in 1963. It prohibited marriage between a white and anyone considered a Negro
(Black American), mulatto
(half black), quadroon
(one-quarter black), octoroon (one-eighth black), "Mongolian
" (East Asian), or member of the "Malay race
" (a racial classification against Filipinos
). No restrictions were placed on marriages between people who were not "white persons." .
At the end of the 19th century, sundown town
s began to post warnings against blacks staying overnight. Sometimes they passed laws against minorities; in others, they erected signs, such as one posted in the 1930s in Hawthorne, California
, which read, "Nigger, Don't Let The Sun Set On YOU In Hawthorne". Discrimination was also accomplished through restrictive covenants for residential areas, agreed to by the real estate agents of the community. In others, the racist policy was enforced through intimidation, including harassment by law enforcement officers.
In addition to the expulsion of African Americans from "sundown towns", Chinese American
s were driven out of some towns. For example, in 1870, ethnic Chinese made up one-third of the population of Idaho
, where they had worked on railroads and in mining. Following a wave of violence and an 1886 anti-Chinese convention in Boise
, almost none remained by 1910. The town of Gardnerville, Nevada
blew a daily whistle at 6 p.m., alerting Native Americans
to leave by sundown. Jews
were excluded from living in some sundown towns.
The National Housing Act of 1934
established the Federal Housing Administration
(FHA) to try to encourage home ownership during the Great Depression
, but another consequence was redlining
. In 1935, the Federal Home Loan Bank Board
(FHLBB) asked the Home Owners' Loan Corporation
(HOLC) to assess 239 cities and develop "residential security maps" to indicate the level of security for real estate investments in each surveyed city. Because of older housing in minority neighborhoods, and undervaluation of minority readiness to work and protect their homes, the agency defined certain areas as high risk. This prevented many residents of minority neighborhoods from being able to get mortgages or loans to renovate their properties. Such redlining had the unanticipated result of increased residential racial segregation
and encouraging urban decay
in the United States. Urban planning historians theorize that the maps were used for years afterward by public and private entities to deny loans to people in black communities.
The [immigration to the United States|mass immigration]] to the United States during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries led to other restrictive laws, influenced by the nativist movement. The new populations came from eastern and southern Europe and were Catholic and Jewish, as opposed to the majority population in the United States of northern European and African American Protestants. y were mostly enacted according to national origins, but also involved racial typologies developed by scientific racism
theorists. For example, although Indian Americans were not classified
as members of any races until the end of the 19th century, the Supreme Court created in 1923, during the United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind
case, the official stance to classify Indians as non-white, which at the time retroactively stripped Indians of citizenship and land rights. While the decision was placating racist Asiatic Exclusion League
(AEL) demands, spurned by growing outrage at the Turban Tide / Hindoo Invasion alongside the pre-existing outrage at the "Yellow Peril
", and while more recent legislation influenced by the civil-rights movement has removed much of the statutory discrimination against Asians, no case has overturned this 1923 classification. Hence, this classification remains, and is still relevant today because many laws and quotas are race-based.
This period, however, also saw the Yick Wo v. Hopkins
case in 1886, which was the first case where the United States Supreme Court ruled that a law that was race-neutral on its face that was administered in a prejudicial manner was an infringement of the Equal Protection Clause
.
", led the US Congress to pass the Page Act of 1875
, the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act
, and the Geary Act
. The Chinese Exclusion Act replaced the Burlingame Treaty
ratified in 1868, which had encouraged Chinese immigration because of labor needs. It provided that "citizens of the United States in China of every religious persuasion and Chinese subjects in the United States shall enjoy entire liberty of conscience and shall be exempt from all disability or persecution on account of their religious faith or worship in either country" and granted certain privileges to citizens of either country residing in the other, withholding, however, the right of naturalization. The Immigration Act of 1917
then created an "Asian Barred Zone" under nativist influence. The Cable Act of 1922 guaranteed independent female citizenship only to women who were married to "alien[s] eligible to naturalization". http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1998/summer/women-and-naturalization-1.html At the time of the law's passage, Asian aliens were not considered to be racially eligible for U.S. citizenship. http://www.apa.si.edu/Curriculum%20Guide-Final/teacherhistory.htm http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/asian_voices/asian_timeline.cfm As such, the Cable Act only partially reversed previous policies, granting independent female citizenship only to women who married non-Asians. The Cable Act effectively revoked the U.S. citizenship of any woman who married an Asian alien. The National Origins Quota of 1924 also included a reference aimed against Japanese citizens, who were ineligible for naturalization and could not either be accepted on US territory. In 1922, a Japanese citizen attempted to demonstrate that the Japanese were members of the "white race," and, as such, eligible for naturalization. This was denied by the Supreme Court in Takao Ozawa v. United States
, who judged that Japanese were not members of the "Caucasian race
."
The 1921 Emergency Quota Act
, and then the Immigration Act of 1924
, restricted immigration according to national origins. While the Emergency Quota Act used the census of 1910, xenophobic fears in the WASP
community lead to the adoption of the 1890 census, more favorable to White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) population, for the uses of the Immigration Act of 1924, which responded to rising immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe, as well as Asia.
One of the goal of this National Origins Formula
, established in 1929, was explicitly to keep the status quo distribution of ethnicity, by allocating quotas in proportion to the actual population. The idea was that immigration would not be allowed to change the "national character". Total annual immigration was capped at 150,000. Asians were excluded but residents of nations in the Americas were not restricted, thus making official the racial discrimination in immigration laws. This system was repealed with the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. However, currently implemented immigration laws are still largely plagued with national origin-based quotas.http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/judiciary/hju93387.000/hju93387_0.htm
of February 1942, which paved the way for Japanese American internment
during which approximately 120,000 people of Japanese descent (American citizens as well as Japanese nationals) were interned during the war. Americans of Italian and German descent, along with Italian and German nationals, were also interned, but on a much smaller scale (see Italian American internment
and German American internment
). In Korematsu v. United States
(1944), the Supreme Court upheld the Executive Order. It was the first instance of the Supreme Court applying the strict scrutiny
standard to racial discrimination by the government and for being one of only a handful of cases in which the Court held that the government met that standard.
Others cases pertaining to Japanese American internment included Yasui v. United States
(1943), Hirabayashi v. United States
(1943), Ex parte Endo
(1944), as well as Korematsu. In Yasui and Hirabayashi, the court upheld the constitutionality of curfews based on Japanese ancestry. In Endo, the court accepted a petition for a writ of habeas corpus
and ruled that the War Relocation Authority
(WRA, created by Executive Order 9102
) had no authority to subject a citizen whose loyalty was acknowledged to its procedures.
Despite these renewed xenophobic fears concerning the "Yellow Peril", 1943 Magnuson Act
repealed the Chinese Exclusion Act and allowed naturalization of Asians.
In 1983, the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians
(CWRIC) concluded that the incarceration of Japanese Americans had not been justified by military necessity. Rather, the report determined that the decision to detain Japanese Americans had been based on "race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership."
of 1945, passed after the victory of the Allies, included provisions that immigration policy should be conducted in a fair manner and non-discriminatory fashion.
In 1946, the Democratic President Harry S. Truman
ended racial segregation in the Armed Forces by Executive Order 9981
. Later that year, the US Congress passed the Luce-Celler Act of 1946 effectively ending statutory discrimination against Filipino American
s and Indian American
s, who had earlier been considered 'unassimilable' along with most other Asian Americans.
The 1947 Mendez v. Westminster
case challenged racial segregation in California schools applied against Latinos. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal, in an en banc decision, held that the segregation of Mexican
and Mexican-American students into separate "Mexican schools" was unconstitutional. In the 1954 Hernandez v. Texas
case, the federal court ruled that Mexican American
s and all other ethnic/"racial groups" in the US had equal protection under the 14th Amendment.
The McCarran-Walter Act of 1952 (or Immigration and Naturalization Act) “extended the privilege of naturalization to Japanese, Koreans, and other Asians.” “The McCarran-Walter Act revised all previous laws and regulations regarding immigration, naturalization, and nationality, and brought them together into one comprehensive statute.”
. In 1954 with Brown v. Board of Education
, the United States Supreme Court ruled that "separate but equal" was inherently discriminatory and directed integration of public schools. An executive order of 1961, by President Kennedy
, created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
to oversee workplace affirmative action. Executive Order 11246
of 1965, signed by President Johnson
, enforced this policy. In the 1970s and 1980s, the policy included court-supervised desegregation busing
plans.
Over the next twenty years, a succession of court decisions and federal laws, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964
, the Voting Rights Act
of 1965, the 1972 Gates v. Collier
Supreme Court ruling that ended racial segregation in prisons, the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act
(1975) and measures to end mortgage discrimination
, prohibited de jure racial segregation and discrimination in the U.S.
The Immigration Act of 1965 discontinued some quotas based on national origin, with preference given to those who have U.S. relatives. For the first time Mexican immigration was restricted.
Residential segregation took various forms. Some state constitutions (for example, that of California
) had clauses giving local jurisdictions the right to regulate where members of certain "races" could live. Restrictive covenant
s in deeds had prevented minorities from purchasing properties from any subsequent owner. In the 1948 case of Shelley v. Kraemer
, the US Supreme Court ruled that such covenants were unenforceable in a court of law. Residential segregation patterns had already become established in most American cities, but they have taken new forms in areas of increased immigration. New immigrant populations have typically moved into older areas to become established, a pattern of population succession seen in many areas. It appears that many ethnic populations prefer to live in areas of concentration, with their own foods, stores, religious institutions and other familiar services. People from a village or region often resettle close together in new areas, even as they move into suburban areas.
The American Indian Religious Freedom Act
(AIRFA) of 1978 was to preserve the rights of American Indians
, Eskimo
s, Aleuts, and Native Hawaiians
to traditional religious practices. Before the AIRFA was passed, certain U.S. federal laws interfered with the traditional religious practices of many American Indians.
Redistricting of voting districts has always been a political process, manipulated by parties or power groups to try to gain advantage. In an effort to prevent African-American populations from being divided to dilute their voting strength and representation, federal courts oversaw certain redistricting decisions in the South for decades to overturn the injustice of the previous century's disfranchisement.
Interpretations continue to change. In the 1999 Hunt v. Cromartie
case, the US Supreme Court ruled that the 12th electoral district of North Carolina as drawn was unconstitutional. Determining that it was created to place African Americans in one district (which would have enabled them to elect a representative), the Court ruled that it constituted illegal racial gerrymandering
. The Court ordered the state of North Carolina to redraw the boundaries of the district.
European colonization of the Americas
The start of the European colonization of the Americas is typically dated to 1492. The first Europeans to reach the Americas were the Vikings during the 11th century, who established several colonies in Greenland and one short-lived settlement in present day Newfoundland...
, the triangular slave trade, and the Indian Wars
Indian Wars
American Indian Wars is the name used in the United States to describe a series of conflicts between American settlers or the federal government and the native peoples of North America before and after the American Revolutionary War. The wars resulted from the arrival of European colonizers who...
. The 1776 Declaration of Independence
United States Declaration of Independence
The Declaration of Independence was a statement adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, which announced that the thirteen American colonies then at war with Great Britain regarded themselves as independent states, and no longer a part of the British Empire. John Adams put forth a...
included the statement that "all men are created equal
All men are created equal
The quotation "All men are created equal" has been called an "immortal declaration", and "perhaps" the single phrase of the United States Revolutionary period with the greatest "continuing importance". Thomas Jefferson first used the phrase in the Declaration of Independence as a rebuttal to the...
," which has ultimately inspired actions and legislation against slavery
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
, and racial discrimination. It led to passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the United States Constitution.
The first period extends until the Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
and the Reconstruction era, the second spans the nadir of American race relations
Nadir of American race relations
The "nadir of American race relations" is a term that refers to the period in United States history from the end of Reconstruction through the early 20th century, when racism in the country is deemed to have been worse than in any other period after the American Civil War. During this period,...
period through the early 20th century; the last period begins with World War II and the following increased civil rights movement
Civil rights movement
The civil rights movement was a worldwide political movement for equality before the law occurring between approximately 1950 and 1980. In many situations it took the form of campaigns of civil resistance aimed at achieving change by nonviolent forms of resistance. In some situations it was...
, leading to the repeal of racial segregation
Racial segregation in the United States
Racial segregation in the United States, as a general term, included the racial segregation or hypersegregation of facilities, services, and opportunities such as housing, medical care, education, employment, and transportation along racial lines...
laws. Race legislation has been intertwined with immigration laws, which sometimes included specific provisions against particular nationalities or ethnicities (i.e. Chinese Exclusion Act or 1923 United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind
United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind
United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind, 261 U.S. 204 , was a case in which the United States Supreme Court decided that Bhagat Singh Thind, who was a Punjabi Sikh, settled in Oregon, could not be a naturalized citizen of the United States, because he was not a "white person" in the sense intended in...
case).
Legislation until the American Civil War and Reconstruction
Until the Civil WarAmerican Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
, slavery was legal, and the Naturalization Act of 1790
Naturalization Act of 1790
The original United States Naturalization Law of March 26, 1790 provided the first rules to be followed by the United States in the granting of national citizenship. This law limited naturalization to immigrants who were "free white persons" of "good moral character". It thus left out indentured...
limited naturalization to aliens who were "free white persons" and thus left out indentured servant
Indentured servant
Indentured servitude refers to the historical practice of contracting to work for a fixed period of time, typically three to seven years, in exchange for transportation, food, clothing, lodging and other necessities during the term of indenture. Usually the father made the arrangements and signed...
s, slaves, free African-Americans, and later Asian-Americans. In addition, many states enforced anti-miscegenation laws
Anti-miscegenation laws
Anti-miscegenation laws, also known as miscegenation laws, were laws that enforced racial segregation at the level of marriage and intimate relationships by criminalizing interracial marriage and sometimes also sex between members of different races...
(e.g. Indiana
Indiana
Indiana is a US state, admitted to the United States as the 19th on December 11, 1816. It is located in the Midwestern United States and Great Lakes Region. With 6,483,802 residents, the state is ranked 15th in population and 16th in population density. Indiana is ranked 38th in land area and is...
in 1845), which prohibited marriage between whites and non-whites, that is, blacks, mulatto
Mulatto
Mulatto denotes a person with one white parent and one black parent, or more broadly, a person of mixed black and white ancestry. Contemporary usage of the term varies greatly, and the broader sense of the term makes its application rather subjective, as not all people of mixed white and black...
es, and in some states also Native Americans
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
. After an influx of Chinese immigrants, marriage between whites and Asians was in some states also banned.
Fugitive slave laws
Fugitive slave laws
The fugitive slave laws were laws passed by the United States Congress in 1793 and 1850 to provide for the return of slaves who escaped from one state into another state or territory.-Pre-colonial and Colonial eras:...
were enacted by Congress in 1793 and 1850 to provide for the return of slaves who had escaped from a slave state
Slave state
In the United States of America prior to the American Civil War, a slave state was a U.S. state in which slavery was legal, whereas a free state was one in which slavery was either prohibited from its entry into the Union or eliminated over time...
to a free state or territory. Black Codes
Black Codes in the USA
The Black Codes were laws put in place in the United States after the Civil War with the effect of limiting the basic human rights and civil liberties of blacks. Even though the U.S...
were adopted by several states. In some states the Black Codes were incorporated into, or required by, the state constitution, many of which were rewritten in the 1840s. Article 13 of Indiana
Indiana
Indiana is a US state, admitted to the United States as the 19th on December 11, 1816. It is located in the Midwestern United States and Great Lakes Region. With 6,483,802 residents, the state is ranked 15th in population and 16th in population density. Indiana is ranked 38th in land area and is...
's 1851 constitution stated "No Negro or Mulatto shall come into, or settle in, the State, after the adoption of this Constitution." The 1848 constitution of Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
led to one of the harshest Black Code systems in the nation before the Civil War. The Illinois Black Code of 1853 extended a complete prohibition against black immigration into the state.
The Indian Removal Act
Indian Removal Act
The Indian Removal Act was signed into law by President Andrew Jackson on May 28, 1830.The Removal Act was strongly supported in the South, where states were eager to gain access to lands inhabited by the Five Civilized Tribes. In particular, Georgia, the largest state at that time, was involved in...
of 1830 legalized deportation of Native Americans to the West, a policy known as "Indian removal
Indian Removal
Indian removal was a nineteenth century policy of the government of the United States to relocate Native American tribes living east of the Mississippi River to lands west of the river...
," while the Indian Intercourse Act
Indian Intercourse Act
The Nonintercourse Act is the collective name given to six statutes passed by the United States Congress in 1790, 1793, 1796, 1799, 1802, and 1834. The Act regulates commerce between Native Americans and non-Indians...
of 1837 created the Indian Territory
Indian Territory
The Indian Territory, also known as the Indian Territories and the Indian Country, was land set aside within the United States for the settlement of American Indians...
. Blood quantum laws
Blood quantum laws
Blood Quantum Laws or Indian Blood Laws is an umbrella term that describes legislation enacted in the United States to define membership in Native American tribes or nations...
determined membership in Native American
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
groups, also deprived of citizenship
Citizenship
Citizenship is the state of being a citizen of a particular social, political, national, or human resource community. Citizenship status, under social contract theory, carries with it both rights and responsibilities...
. Reservations
Indian reservation
An American Indian reservation is an area of land managed by a Native American tribe under the United States Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs...
were created with the Indian Appropriations Act
Indian Appropriations Act
The Indian Appropriations Act is the name of several acts passed by the United States Congress. A considerable number of acts were passed under the same name throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, but the most notable landmark acts consist of the 1851 Indian Appropriations Act and the 1871...
s in the 1850s. The Dawes Act
Dawes Act
The Dawes Act, adopted by Congress in 1887, authorized the President of the United States to survey Indian tribal land and divide the land into allotments for individual Indians. The Act was named for its sponsor, Senator Henry L. Dawes of Massachusetts. The Dawes Act was amended in 1891 and again...
of 1887 registered members of the so-called "Five Civilized Tribes
Five Civilized Tribes
The Five Civilized Tribes were the five Native American nations—the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole—that were considered civilized by Anglo-European settlers during the colonial and early federal period because they adopted many of the colonists' customs and had generally good...
" and included privatization
Privatization
Privatization is the incidence or process of transferring ownership of a business, enterprise, agency or public service from the public sector to the private sector or to private non-profit organizations...
of common holdings of American Indians. Some of its measures were repealed with the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act
Indian Reorganization Act
The Indian Reorganization Act of June 18, 1934 the Indian New Deal, was U.S. federal legislation that secured certain rights to Native Americans, including Alaska Natives...
, allowing a return to local self-government. Citizenship was not granted to Native Americans until the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924
Indian Citizenship Act of 1924
The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, also known as the Snyder Act, was proposed by Representative Homer P. Snyder of New York and granted full U.S. citizenship to America's indigenous peoples, called "Indians" in this Act...
.
The victory of the North during the Civil War led to the abolition of slavery with the Thirteenth Amendment
Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution officially abolished and continues to prohibit slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. It was passed by the Senate on April 8, 1864, passed by the House on January 31, 1865, and adopted on December 6, 1865. On...
and an expansion of the civil rights of African-Americans with the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments.Its Citizenship Clause provides a broad definition of citizenship that overruled the Dred Scott v...
. The Fourteenth Amendment also overturned the Dred Scott
Dred Scott v. Sandford
Dred Scott v. Sandford, , also known as the Dred Scott Decision, was a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that people of African descent brought into the United States and held as slaves were not protected by the Constitution and could never be U.S...
case of 1857, in which the Supreme Court
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
ruled that people of African descent, whether they were enslaved or free, could not be citizens of the United States. The Fifteenth Amendment
Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits each government in the United States from denying a citizen the right to vote based on that citizen's "race, color, or previous condition of servitude"...
prohibited disenfranchisement
Disfranchisement
Disfranchisement is the revocation of the right of suffrage of a person or group of people, or rendering a person's vote less effective, or ineffective...
on the basis of race. The Naturalization Act of 1870
Naturalization Act of 1870
The Naturalization Act of 1870 was a law passed by the United States Congress concerning immigration and immigrants. It was created to deal with two immigration issues:...
concerned itself with naturalization of people of African descent.
Legislation during the nadir of American race relations
Following the end of the Reconstruction period, southern whites reasserted political and social supremacy, with the violence and discrimination that caused the nadir of American race relationsNadir of American race relations
The "nadir of American race relations" is a term that refers to the period in United States history from the end of Reconstruction through the early 20th century, when racism in the country is deemed to have been worse than in any other period after the American Civil War. During this period,...
. There was increasing racial violence
Mass racial violence in the United States
Mass racial violence, also called race riots can include such disparate events as:* attacks on Irish Catholics, the Chinese and other immigrants in the 19th century....
in the South, lynchings and attacks to intimidate blacks and repress their voting. After regaining power in the state legislatures in the 1870s, white Democrats passed legislation to impose electoral requirements that effectively disfranchised black voters. From 1890-1910, Southern states ratified constitutional amendments or new constitutions that increased requirements for voter registration, which resulted in disfranchising most blacks and many poor whites (as in Alabama.) With political control in what was effectively a one-party system, they passed Jim Crow laws
Jim Crow laws
The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws in the United States enacted between 1876 and 1965. They mandated de jure racial segregation in all public facilities, with a supposedly "separate but equal" status for black Americans...
and instituted racial segregation
Racial segregation in the United States
Racial segregation in the United States, as a general term, included the racial segregation or hypersegregation of facilities, services, and opportunities such as housing, medical care, education, employment, and transportation along racial lines...
in public facilities. In 1896, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the defendants in the Plessy v. Ferguson
Plessy v. Ferguson
Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 , is a landmark United States Supreme Court decision in the jurisprudence of the United States, upholding the constitutionality of state laws requiring racial segregation in private businesses , under the doctrine of "separate but equal".The decision was handed...
case, which established the "separate but equal
Separate but equal
Separate but equal was a legal doctrine in United States constitutional law that justified systems of segregation. Under this doctrine, services, facilities and public accommodations were allowed to be separated by race, on the condition that the quality of each group's public facilities was to...
" interpretation of provision of services. Without the vote, however, black residents in the South found their segregated facilities consistently underfunded, and they were without recourse in the legal system, as only voters could sit on juries or hold office. They were closed out of the political process in most states. In 1899, the Cumming v. Richmond County Board of Education
Cumming v. Richmond County Board of Education
Cumming v. Richmond County Board of Education, 175 U.S. 528 was a class action suit decided by the Supreme Court of the United States. It is a landmark case, in that it sanctioned de jure segregation of races in American schools. The decision was overruled by Brown v...
case ended in the legalization of segregation in schools.
Anti-miscegenation laws
Anti-miscegenation laws
Anti-miscegenation laws, also known as miscegenation laws, were laws that enforced racial segregation at the level of marriage and intimate relationships by criminalizing interracial marriage and sometimes also sex between members of different races...
prohibited marriages of English people with Africans (blacks), and in some states also with Native Americans and Asians. Such laws were first passed during the Colonial era in several of the Thirteen Colonies
Thirteen Colonies
The Thirteen Colonies were English and later British colonies established on the Atlantic coast of North America between 1607 and 1733. They declared their independence in the American Revolution and formed the United States of America...
, starting with Virginia in 1691. After the American Revolutionary War
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War , the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers.The war was the result of the...
, several of the newly independent states repealed such laws. However, all the slave states and many free states enforced such laws in the Antebellum era.
During Reconstruction, when biracial Republican
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
coalitions controlled the legislatures, several Southern states repealed anti-miscegenation laws. As Democrats returned to power, between 1870 and 1884, Southern legislatures passed anti-miscegenation laws in all the states of the Confederacy to re-establish white supremacy.
In addition, western states newly admitted to the Union after the Civil War passed anti-miscegenation laws laws, often directed against marriages between Europeans and Asians (the increasing immigrant population), as well as prohibiting marriages with blacks and Native Americans. For instance, Utah
Utah
Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...
's marriage law had an anti-miscegenation component passed in 1899; it was repealed in 1963. It prohibited marriage between a white and anyone considered a Negro
Negro
The word Negro is used in the English-speaking world to refer to a person of black ancestry or appearance, whether of African descent or not...
(Black American), mulatto
Mulatto
Mulatto denotes a person with one white parent and one black parent, or more broadly, a person of mixed black and white ancestry. Contemporary usage of the term varies greatly, and the broader sense of the term makes its application rather subjective, as not all people of mixed white and black...
(half black), quadroon
Quadroon
Quadroon, and the associated words octoroon and quintroon are terms that, historically, were applied to define the ancestry of people of mixed-race, generally of African and Caucasian ancestry, but also, within Australia, to those of Aboriginal and Caucasian ancestry...
(one-quarter black), octoroon (one-eighth black), "Mongolian
Mongoloid race
Mongoloid is a term sometimes used by forensic anthropologists and physical anthropologists to refer to populations that share certain phenotypic traits such as epicanthic fold and shovel-shaped incisors and other physical traits common in East Asia, the Americas and the Arctic...
" (East Asian), or member of the "Malay race
Malay race
The concept of a Malay race was proposed by the German scientist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach , and classified as the brown race. Since Blumenbach, many anthropologists have rejected his theory of five races, citing the enormous complexity of classifying races...
" (a racial classification against Filipinos
Filipino people
The Filipino people or Filipinos are an Austronesian ethnic group native to the islands of the Philippines. There are about 92 million Filipinos in the Philippines, and about 11 million living outside the Philippines ....
). No restrictions were placed on marriages between people who were not "white persons." .
At the end of the 19th century, sundown town
Sundown town
A sundown town is a town that is or was purposely all-White. The term is widely used in the United States in areas from Ohio to Oregon and well into the South. The term came from signs that were allegedly posted stating that people of color had to leave the town by sundown...
s began to post warnings against blacks staying overnight. Sometimes they passed laws against minorities; in others, they erected signs, such as one posted in the 1930s in Hawthorne, California
Hawthorne, California
Hawthorne is a city in southwestern Los Angeles County, California. The city at the 2010 census had a population of 84,293, up from 84,112 at the 2000 census.-Geography:...
, which read, "Nigger, Don't Let The Sun Set On YOU In Hawthorne". Discrimination was also accomplished through restrictive covenants for residential areas, agreed to by the real estate agents of the community. In others, the racist policy was enforced through intimidation, including harassment by law enforcement officers.
In addition to the expulsion of African Americans from "sundown towns", Chinese American
Chinese American
Chinese Americans represent Americans of Chinese descent. Chinese Americans constitute one group of overseas Chinese and also a subgroup of East Asian Americans, which is further a subgroup of Asian Americans...
s were driven out of some towns. For example, in 1870, ethnic Chinese made up one-third of the population of Idaho
Idaho
Idaho is a state in the Rocky Mountain area of the United States. The state's largest city and capital is Boise. Residents are called "Idahoans". Idaho was admitted to the Union on July 3, 1890, as the 43rd state....
, where they had worked on railroads and in mining. Following a wave of violence and an 1886 anti-Chinese convention in Boise
Boise, Idaho
Boise is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Idaho, as well as the county seat of Ada County. Located on the Boise River, it anchors the Boise City-Nampa metropolitan area and is the largest city between Salt Lake City, Utah and Portland, Oregon.As of the 2010 Census Bureau,...
, almost none remained by 1910. The town of Gardnerville, Nevada
Gardnerville, Nevada
Gardnerville is a census-designated place in Douglas County, Nevada, United States, adjacent to the county seat of Minden. The population was 3,357 at the 2000 census....
blew a daily whistle at 6 p.m., alerting Native Americans
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
to leave by sundown. Jews
American Jews
American Jews, also known as Jewish Americans, are American citizens of the Jewish faith or Jewish ethnicity. The Jewish community in the United States is composed predominantly of Ashkenazi Jews who emigrated from Central and Eastern Europe, and their U.S.-born descendants...
were excluded from living in some sundown towns.
The National Housing Act of 1934
National Housing Act of 1934
The National Housing Act of 1934, , also called the Capehart Act, was part of the New Deal passed during the Great Depression in order to make housing and home mortgages more affordable. It created the Federal Housing Administration and the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation.It was...
established the Federal Housing Administration
Federal Housing Administration
The Federal Housing Administration is a United States government agency created as part of the National Housing Act of 1934. It insured loans made by banks and other private lenders for home building and home buying...
(FHA) to try to encourage home ownership during the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
, but another consequence was redlining
Redlining
Redlining is the practice of denying, or increasing the cost of services such as banking, insurance, access to jobs, access to health care, or even supermarkets to residents in certain, often racially determined, areas. The term "redlining" was coined in the late 1960s by John McKnight, a...
. In 1935, the Federal Home Loan Bank Board
Federal Home Loan Bank Board
The Federal Home Loan Bank Board was a board created by the Federal Home Loan Bank Act of 1932 that created and oversaw the Federal Home Loan Banks also created by the act. It was superseded by the Federal Housing Finance Board and the Office of Thrift Supervision in the Financial Institutions...
(FHLBB) asked the Home Owners' Loan Corporation
Home Owners' Loan Corporation
The Home Owners' Loan Corporation was a New Deal agency established in 1933 by the Home Owners' Loan Corporation Act under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Its purpose was to refinance home mortgages currently in default to prevent foreclosure. This was accomplished by selling bonds to lenders in...
(HOLC) to assess 239 cities and develop "residential security maps" to indicate the level of security for real estate investments in each surveyed city. Because of older housing in minority neighborhoods, and undervaluation of minority readiness to work and protect their homes, the agency defined certain areas as high risk. This prevented many residents of minority neighborhoods from being able to get mortgages or loans to renovate their properties. Such redlining had the unanticipated result of increased residential racial segregation
Racial segregation
Racial segregation is the separation of humans into racial groups in daily life. It may apply to activities such as eating in a restaurant, drinking from a water fountain, using a public toilet, attending school, going to the movies, or in the rental or purchase of a home...
and encouraging urban decay
Urban decay
Urban decay is the process whereby a previously functioning city, or part of a city, falls into disrepair and decrepitude...
in the United States. Urban planning historians theorize that the maps were used for years afterward by public and private entities to deny loans to people in black communities.
The [immigration to the United States|mass immigration]] to the United States during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries led to other restrictive laws, influenced by the nativist movement. The new populations came from eastern and southern Europe and were Catholic and Jewish, as opposed to the majority population in the United States of northern European and African American Protestants. y were mostly enacted according to national origins, but also involved racial typologies developed by scientific racism
Scientific racism
Scientific racism is the use of scientific techniques and hypotheses to sanction the belief in racial superiority or racism.This is not the same as using scientific findings and the scientific method to investigate differences among the humans and argue that there are races...
theorists. For example, although Indian Americans were not classified
Racial classification of Indian Americans
The racial classification of Indian Americans has varied over the years and across institutions and is presently Asian American. Originally, neither the courts nor the census bureau classified Indian Americans as a race because there were only negligible numbers of Indians in the U.S...
as members of any races until the end of the 19th century, the Supreme Court created in 1923, during the United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind
United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind
United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind, 261 U.S. 204 , was a case in which the United States Supreme Court decided that Bhagat Singh Thind, who was a Punjabi Sikh, settled in Oregon, could not be a naturalized citizen of the United States, because he was not a "white person" in the sense intended in...
case, the official stance to classify Indians as non-white, which at the time retroactively stripped Indians of citizenship and land rights. While the decision was placating racist Asiatic Exclusion League
Asiatic Exclusion League
The Asiatic Exclusion League, often abbreviated AEL, was a racist organization formed in the early twentieth century in the United States and Canada that aimed to prevent immigration of people of East Asian origin.-United States:...
(AEL) demands, spurned by growing outrage at the Turban Tide / Hindoo Invasion alongside the pre-existing outrage at the "Yellow Peril
Yellow Peril
Yellow Peril was a colour metaphor for race that originated in the late nineteenth century with immigration of Chinese laborers to various Western countries, notably the United States, and later associated with the Japanese during the mid 20th century, due to Japanese military expansion.The term...
", and while more recent legislation influenced by the civil-rights movement has removed much of the statutory discrimination against Asians, no case has overturned this 1923 classification. Hence, this classification remains, and is still relevant today because many laws and quotas are race-based.
This period, however, also saw the Yick Wo v. Hopkins
Yick Wo v. Hopkins
Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356 , was the first case where the United States Supreme Court ruled that a law that is race-neutral on its face, but is administered in a prejudicial manner, is an infringement of the Equal Protection Clause in the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S...
case in 1886, which was the first case where the United States Supreme Court ruled that a law that was race-neutral on its face that was administered in a prejudicial manner was an infringement of the Equal Protection Clause
Equal Protection Clause
The Equal Protection Clause, part of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, provides that "no state shall ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws"...
.
The 'Yellow Peril' and the national origins formula
Fears and labor competition with Chinese on the West Coast, the alleged "Yellow PerilYellow Peril
Yellow Peril was a colour metaphor for race that originated in the late nineteenth century with immigration of Chinese laborers to various Western countries, notably the United States, and later associated with the Japanese during the mid 20th century, due to Japanese military expansion.The term...
", led the US Congress to pass the Page Act of 1875
Page Act of 1875
The Page Act of 1875 was the first federal immigration law and prohibited the entry of immigrants considered "undesirable." The law classified as "undesirable" any individual from Asia who was coming to America to be a contract laborer, any Asian woman who would engage in prostitution, and all...
, the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act
Chinese Exclusion Act (United States)
The Chinese Exclusion Act was a United States federal law signed by Chester A. Arthur on May 8, 1882, following revisions made in 1880 to the Burlingame Treaty of 1868. Those revisions allowed the U.S. to suspend immigration, and Congress subsequently acted quickly to implement the suspension of...
, and the Geary Act
Geary Act
The Geary Act was a United States law passed in 1892 written by California Congressman Thomas J. Geary. It extended the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 by adding onerous new requirements....
. The Chinese Exclusion Act replaced the Burlingame Treaty
Burlingame Treaty
The Burlingame Treaty, also known as the Burlingame-Seward Treaty of 1868, between the United States and China, amended the Treaty of Tientsin of 1858 and established formal friendly relations between the two countries, with the United States granting China most favored nation status...
ratified in 1868, which had encouraged Chinese immigration because of labor needs. It provided that "citizens of the United States in China of every religious persuasion and Chinese subjects in the United States shall enjoy entire liberty of conscience and shall be exempt from all disability or persecution on account of their religious faith or worship in either country" and granted certain privileges to citizens of either country residing in the other, withholding, however, the right of naturalization. The Immigration Act of 1917
Immigration Act of 1917
On February 4, 1917, the United States Congress passed the Immigration Act of 1917 with an overwhelming majority, overriding President Woodrow Wilson's December 14, 1916 veto...
then created an "Asian Barred Zone" under nativist influence. The Cable Act of 1922 guaranteed independent female citizenship only to women who were married to "alien[s] eligible to naturalization". http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1998/summer/women-and-naturalization-1.html At the time of the law's passage, Asian aliens were not considered to be racially eligible for U.S. citizenship. http://www.apa.si.edu/Curriculum%20Guide-Final/teacherhistory.htm http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/asian_voices/asian_timeline.cfm As such, the Cable Act only partially reversed previous policies, granting independent female citizenship only to women who married non-Asians. The Cable Act effectively revoked the U.S. citizenship of any woman who married an Asian alien. The National Origins Quota of 1924 also included a reference aimed against Japanese citizens, who were ineligible for naturalization and could not either be accepted on US territory. In 1922, a Japanese citizen attempted to demonstrate that the Japanese were members of the "white race," and, as such, eligible for naturalization. This was denied by the Supreme Court in Takao Ozawa v. United States
Takao Ozawa v. United States
Takao Ozawa v. United States, 260 U.S. 178 , was a case in which the United States Supreme Court found Takao Ozawa, a Japanese man, ineligible for naturalization. In 1922, Takao Ozawa filed for United States citizenship under the Naturalization Act of June 29, 1906 which allowed white persons and...
, who judged that Japanese were not members of the "Caucasian race
Caucasian race
The term Caucasian race has been used to denote the general physical type of some or all of the populations of Europe, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, Western Asia , Central Asia and South Asia...
."
The 1921 Emergency Quota Act
Emergency Quota Act
The Emergency Quota Act, also known as the Emergency Immigration Act of 1921, the Immigration Restriction Act of 1921, the Per Centum Law, and the Johnson Quota Act restricted immigration into the United States...
, and then the Immigration Act of 1924
Immigration Act of 1924
The Immigration Act of 1924, or Johnson–Reed Act, including the National Origins Act, and Asian Exclusion Act , was a United States federal law that limited the annual number of immigrants who could be admitted from any country to 2% of the number of people from that country who were already...
, restricted immigration according to national origins. While the Emergency Quota Act used the census of 1910, xenophobic fears in the WASP
White Anglo-Saxon Protestant
White Anglo-Saxon Protestant or WASP is an informal term, often derogatory or disparaging, for a closed group of high-status Americans mostly of British Protestant ancestry. The group supposedly wields disproportionate financial and social power. When it appears in writing, it is usually used to...
community lead to the adoption of the 1890 census, more favorable to White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) population, for the uses of the Immigration Act of 1924, which responded to rising immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe, as well as Asia.
One of the goal of this National Origins Formula
National Origins Formula
The National Origins Formula was an American system of immigration quotas, between 1921 and 1965, which restricted immigration on the basis of existing proportions of the population. The goal was to maintain the existing ethnic composition of the United States...
, established in 1929, was explicitly to keep the status quo distribution of ethnicity, by allocating quotas in proportion to the actual population. The idea was that immigration would not be allowed to change the "national character". Total annual immigration was capped at 150,000. Asians were excluded but residents of nations in the Americas were not restricted, thus making official the racial discrimination in immigration laws. This system was repealed with the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. However, currently implemented immigration laws are still largely plagued with national origin-based quotas.http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/judiciary/hju93387.000/hju93387_0.htm
During World War II
President Roosevelt enacted discriminatory practices with Executive Order 9066Executive Order 9066
United States Executive Order 9066 was a United States presidential executive order signed and issued during World War II by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942 authorizing the Secretary of War to prescribe certain areas as military zones...
of February 1942, which paved the way for Japanese American internment
Japanese American internment
Japanese-American internment was the relocation and internment by the United States government in 1942 of approximately 110,000 Japanese Americans and Japanese who lived along the Pacific coast of the United States to camps called "War Relocation Camps," in the wake of Imperial Japan's attack on...
during which approximately 120,000 people of Japanese descent (American citizens as well as Japanese nationals) were interned during the war. Americans of Italian and German descent, along with Italian and German nationals, were also interned, but on a much smaller scale (see Italian American internment
Italian American internment
Italian American internment refers to the internment of Italian Americans in the United States during World War II.-Terms:The term "Italian American" does not have a legal definition...
and German American internment
German American internment
German American Internment refers to the detention of people of German citizenship in the United States during World War I and World War II.-Civilian internees:...
). In Korematsu v. United States
Korematsu v. United States
Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214 , was a landmark United States Supreme Court case concerning the constitutionality of Executive Order 9066, which ordered Japanese Americans into internment camps during World War II....
(1944), the Supreme Court upheld the Executive Order. It was the first instance of the Supreme Court applying the strict scrutiny
Strict scrutiny
Strict scrutiny is the most stringent standard of judicial review used by United States courts. It is part of the hierarchy of standards that courts use to weigh the government's interest against a constitutional right or principle. The lesser standards are rational basis review and exacting or...
standard to racial discrimination by the government and for being one of only a handful of cases in which the Court held that the government met that standard.
Others cases pertaining to Japanese American internment included Yasui v. United States
Yasui v. United States
Yasui v. United States, 320 U.S. 115 was a United States Supreme Court case regarding the constitutionality of curfews used during World War II when they were applied to citizens of the United States. The case arose out of the implementation of Executive Order 9066 by the U.S...
(1943), Hirabayashi v. United States
Hirabayashi v. United States
Hirabayashi v. United States, 320 U.S. 81 , was a case in which the United States Supreme Court held that the application of curfews against members of a minority group were constitutional when the nation was at war with the country from which that group originated. Yasui v...
(1943), Ex parte Endo
Ex parte Endo
Ex parte Endo, or Ex parte Mitsuye Endo, 323 U.S. 283 , was a United States Supreme Court decision, handed down on December 18, 1944, the same day as their decision in Korematsu v. United States...
(1944), as well as Korematsu. In Yasui and Hirabayashi, the court upheld the constitutionality of curfews based on Japanese ancestry. In Endo, the court accepted a petition for a writ of habeas corpus
Habeas corpus
is a writ, or legal action, through which a prisoner can be released from unlawful detention. The remedy can be sought by the prisoner or by another person coming to his aid. Habeas corpus originated in the English legal system, but it is now available in many nations...
and ruled that the War Relocation Authority
War Relocation Authority
The War Relocation Authority was a United States government agency established to handle internment of Japanese-, German-, and Italian-Americans during World War II...
(WRA, created by Executive Order 9102
Executive Order 9102
Executive Order 9102 was a United States presidential executive order ordering the creation of the War Relocation Authority which was the U.S. civilian agency responsible for the penetration, relocation and internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II...
) had no authority to subject a citizen whose loyalty was acknowledged to its procedures.
Despite these renewed xenophobic fears concerning the "Yellow Peril", 1943 Magnuson Act
Magnuson Act
The Magnuson Act also known as the Chinese Exclusion Repeal Act of 1943 was immigration legislation proposed by U.S. Representative Warren G. Magnuson of Washington and signed into law on December 17, 1943 in the United States...
repealed the Chinese Exclusion Act and allowed naturalization of Asians.
In 1983, the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians
Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians
The Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians was a group of people appointed by the U.S. Congress to conduct an official governmental study of Executive Order 9066, related wartime orders and their impact on Japanese Americans in the West and Alaska Natives in the Pribilof...
(CWRIC) concluded that the incarceration of Japanese Americans had not been justified by military necessity. Rather, the report determined that the decision to detain Japanese Americans had been based on "race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership."
Aftermath of World War II
The United Nations Participation ActUnited Nations Participation Act
United Nations Participation Act of 1945 dealt with the process of United States joining the newly created United Nations and related bodies of the United Nations....
of 1945, passed after the victory of the Allies, included provisions that immigration policy should be conducted in a fair manner and non-discriminatory fashion.
In 1946, the Democratic President Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman was the 33rd President of the United States . As President Franklin D. Roosevelt's third vice president and the 34th Vice President of the United States , he succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945, when President Roosevelt died less than three months after beginning his...
ended racial segregation in the Armed Forces by Executive Order 9981
Executive Order 9981
Executive Order 9981 is an executive order issued on July 26, 1948 by U.S. President Harry S. Truman. It expanded on Executive Order 8802 by establishing equality of treatment and opportunity in the Armed Services for people of all races, religions, or national origins."In 1947, Randolph, along...
. Later that year, the US Congress passed the Luce-Celler Act of 1946 effectively ending statutory discrimination against Filipino American
Filipino American
Filipino Americans are Americans of Filipino ancestry. Filipino Americans, often shortened to "Fil-Ams", or "Pinoy",Filipinos in what is now the United States were first documented in the 16th century, with small settlements beginning in the 18th century...
s and Indian American
Indian American
Indian Americans are Americans whose ancestral roots lie in India. The U.S. Census Bureau popularized the term Asian Indian to avoid confusion with Indigenous peoples of the Americas who are commonly referred to as American Indians.-The term: Indian:...
s, who had earlier been considered 'unassimilable' along with most other Asian Americans.
The 1947 Mendez v. Westminster
Mendez v. Westminster
Mendez, et al v. Westminster School District, et al, 64 F.Supp. 544 , aff'd, 161 F.2d 774 , was a 1946 federal court case that challenged racial segregation in Orange County, California schools...
case challenged racial segregation in California schools applied against Latinos. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal, in an en banc decision, held that the segregation of Mexican
Mexican people
Mexican people refers to all persons from Mexico, a multiethnic country in North America, and/or who identify with the Mexican cultural and/or national identity....
and Mexican-American students into separate "Mexican schools" was unconstitutional. In the 1954 Hernandez v. Texas
Hernandez v. Texas
Hernandez v. Texas, 347 U.S. 475 , was a landmark United States Supreme Court case that decided that Mexican Americans and all other racial groups in the United States had equal protection under the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution....
case, the federal court ruled that Mexican American
Mexican American
Mexican Americans are Americans of Mexican descent. As of July 2009, Mexican Americans make up 10.3% of the United States' population with over 31,689,000 Americans listed as of Mexican ancestry. Mexican Americans comprise 66% of all Hispanics and Latinos in the United States...
s and all other ethnic/"racial groups" in the US had equal protection under the 14th Amendment.
The McCarran-Walter Act of 1952 (or Immigration and Naturalization Act) “extended the privilege of naturalization to Japanese, Koreans, and other Asians.” “The McCarran-Walter Act revised all previous laws and regulations regarding immigration, naturalization, and nationality, and brought them together into one comprehensive statute.”
The civil rights movement
Legislation enacting racial segregation was finally overturned in the 1950s-60s, after the nation was morally challenged and educated by activists of the Civil Rights MovementCivil rights movement
The civil rights movement was a worldwide political movement for equality before the law occurring between approximately 1950 and 1980. In many situations it took the form of campaigns of civil resistance aimed at achieving change by nonviolent forms of resistance. In some situations it was...
. In 1954 with Brown v. Board of Education
Brown v. Board of Education
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 , was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court that declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students unconstitutional. The decision overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896 which...
, the United States Supreme Court ruled that "separate but equal" was inherently discriminatory and directed integration of public schools. An executive order of 1961, by President Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
, created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is an independent federal law enforcement agency that enforces laws against workplace discrimination. The EEOC investigates discrimination complaints based on an individual's race, color, national origin, religion, sex, age, perceived intelligence,...
to oversee workplace affirmative action. Executive Order 11246
Executive Order 11246
Executive Order 11246, signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson on September 24, 1965 required Equal Employment Opportunity. The Order "prohibits federal contractors and federally assisted construction contractors and subcontractors, who do over $10,000 in Government business in one year from...
of 1965, signed by President Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...
, enforced this policy. In the 1970s and 1980s, the policy included court-supervised desegregation busing
Desegregation busing
Desegregation busing in the United States is the practice of assigning and transporting students to schools in such a manner as to redress prior racial segregation of schools, or to overcome the effects of residential segregation on local school demographics.In 1954, the U.S...
plans.
Over the next twenty years, a succession of court decisions and federal laws, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a landmark piece of legislation in the United States that outlawed major forms of discrimination against African Americans and women, including racial segregation...
, the Voting Rights Act
Voting Rights Act
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a landmark piece of national legislation in the United States that outlawed discriminatory voting practices that had been responsible for the widespread disenfranchisement of African Americans in the U.S....
of 1965, the 1972 Gates v. Collier
Gates v. Collier
Gates v. Collier, 501 F.2d 1291 , was a landmark case decided in U.S. federal court that brought an end to the Trusty system and the flagrant inmate abuse that accompanied it at Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman, Mississippi...
Supreme Court ruling that ended racial segregation in prisons, the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act
Home Mortgage Disclosure Act
The United States Home Mortgage Disclosure Act was passed in 1975. It requires financial institutions to maintain and annually disclose data about home purchases, home purchase pre-approvals, home improvement, and refinance applications involving 1 to 4 unit and multifamily dwellings...
(1975) and measures to end mortgage discrimination
Mortgage discrimination
Mortgage discrimination or mortgage lending discrimination is the practice of banks, governments or other lending institutions denying loans to one or more groups of people primarily on the basis of race, ethnic origin, sex or religion...
, prohibited de jure racial segregation and discrimination in the U.S.
The Immigration Act of 1965 discontinued some quotas based on national origin, with preference given to those who have U.S. relatives. For the first time Mexican immigration was restricted.
Residential segregation took various forms. Some state constitutions (for example, that of California
California Constitution
The document that establishes and describes the duties, powers, structure and function of the government of the U.S. state of California. The original constitution, adopted in November 1849 in advance of California attaining U.S. statehood in 1850, was superseded by the current constitution, which...
) had clauses giving local jurisdictions the right to regulate where members of certain "races" could live. Restrictive covenant
Restrictive covenant
A restrictive covenant is a type of real covenant, a legal obligation imposed in a deed by the seller upon the buyer of real estate to do or not to do something. Such restrictions frequently "run with the land" and are enforceable on subsequent buyers of the property...
s in deeds had prevented minorities from purchasing properties from any subsequent owner. In the 1948 case of Shelley v. Kraemer
Shelley v. Kraemer
Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U.S. 1 , is a United States Supreme Court case which held that courts could not enforce racial covenants on real estate.-Facts of the case:...
, the US Supreme Court ruled that such covenants were unenforceable in a court of law. Residential segregation patterns had already become established in most American cities, but they have taken new forms in areas of increased immigration. New immigrant populations have typically moved into older areas to become established, a pattern of population succession seen in many areas. It appears that many ethnic populations prefer to live in areas of concentration, with their own foods, stores, religious institutions and other familiar services. People from a village or region often resettle close together in new areas, even as they move into suburban areas.
The American Indian Religious Freedom Act
American Indian Religious Freedom Act
The American Indian Religious Freedom Act, Public Law No. 95-341, 92 Stat. 469 , codified at , is a United States federal law and a joint resolution of Congress that was passed in 1978. It was enacted to protect and preserve the traditional religious rights and cultural practices of American...
(AIRFA) of 1978 was to preserve the rights of American Indians
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
, Eskimo
Eskimo
Eskimos or Inuit–Yupik peoples are indigenous peoples who have traditionally inhabited the circumpolar region from eastern Siberia , across Alaska , Canada, and Greenland....
s, Aleuts, and Native Hawaiians
Native Hawaiians
Native Hawaiians refers to the indigenous Polynesian people of the Hawaiian Islands or their descendants. Native Hawaiians trace their ancestry back to the original Polynesian settlers of Hawaii.According to the U.S...
to traditional religious practices. Before the AIRFA was passed, certain U.S. federal laws interfered with the traditional religious practices of many American Indians.
Redistricting of voting districts has always been a political process, manipulated by parties or power groups to try to gain advantage. In an effort to prevent African-American populations from being divided to dilute their voting strength and representation, federal courts oversaw certain redistricting decisions in the South for decades to overturn the injustice of the previous century's disfranchisement.
Interpretations continue to change. In the 1999 Hunt v. Cromartie
Hunt v. Cromartie
Hunt v. Cromartie, 526 U.S. 541 , was a United States Supreme Court case regarding the contentious 12th district of North Carolina. In an earlier case, Shaw v. Reno, 517 U.S...
case, the US Supreme Court ruled that the 12th electoral district of North Carolina as drawn was unconstitutional. Determining that it was created to place African Americans in one district (which would have enabled them to elect a representative), the Court ruled that it constituted illegal racial gerrymandering
Gerrymandering
In the process of setting electoral districts, gerrymandering is a practice that attempts to establish a political advantage for a particular party or group by manipulating geographic boundaries to create partisan, incumbent-protected districts...
. The Court ordered the state of North Carolina to redraw the boundaries of the district.
See also
- Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United StatesHeart of Atlanta Motel v. United StatesHeart of Atlanta Motel Inc. v. United States, 379 U.S. 241 , was a landmark United States Supreme Court case holding that the U.S. Congress could use the Constitution's Commerce Clause power to force private businesses to abide by the Civil Rights Act of 1964.- Background :This important case...
- Immigration to the United StatesImmigration to the United StatesImmigration to the United States has been a major source of population growth and cultural change throughout much of the history of the United States. The economic, social, and political aspects of immigration have caused controversy regarding ethnicity, economic benefits, jobs for non-immigrants,...
- List of United States immigration legislation
- NAACP v. AlabamaNAACP v. AlabamaNational Association for the Advancement of Colored People v. Alabama, 357 U.S. 449 , was an important civil rights case brought before the United States Supreme Court....
- National Origins FormulaNational Origins FormulaThe National Origins Formula was an American system of immigration quotas, between 1921 and 1965, which restricted immigration on the basis of existing proportions of the population. The goal was to maintain the existing ethnic composition of the United States...
- Racial classification of Indian AmericansRacial classification of Indian AmericansThe racial classification of Indian Americans has varied over the years and across institutions and is presently Asian American. Originally, neither the courts nor the census bureau classified Indian Americans as a race because there were only negligible numbers of Indians in the U.S...
- Racism in the United StatesRacism in the United StatesRacism in the United States has been a major issue since the colonial era and the slave era. Legally sanctioned racism imposed a heavy burden on Native Americans, African Americans, Asian Americans, and Latin Americans...
- Slavery in the United States
- Smith v. AllwrightSmith v. AllwrightSmith v. Allwright , 321 U.S. 649 , was a very important decision of the United States Supreme Court with regard to voting rights and, by extension, racial desegregation. It overturned the Democratic Party's use of all-white primaries in Texas, and other states where the party used the...
- Yick Wo v. HopkinsYick Wo v. HopkinsYick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356 , was the first case where the United States Supreme Court ruled that a law that is race-neutral on its face, but is administered in a prejudicial manner, is an infringement of the Equal Protection Clause in the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S...