-
Appendix 2: Discussion Questions
- University of Arkansas Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
changes to prevent newly registered black voters from effectively using the ballot. Congress also heard extensive testimony about voting discrimination that had been suffered by Hispanic, Asian, and Native American citizens, and the 1975 amendments added protections from voting discrimination for language-minority citizens. In 1973, the Supreme Court held certain legislative multi-member districts unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment on the ground that they systematically diluted the voting strength of minority citizens in Bexar County, Texas. This decision in White v. Regester, 412 U.S. 755 (1973), strongly shaped litigation through the 1970s against at-large systems and gerrymandered redistricting plans. In Mobile v. Bolden, 446 U.S. 55 (1980), however, the Supreme Court required that any constitutional claim of minority vote dilution must include proof of a racially discriminatory purpose, a requirement that was widely seen as making such claims far more difficult to prove. The 1982 Amendments Congress renewed in 1982 the special provisions of the Act, triggered by coverage under Section 4 for twenty-five years. Congress also adopted a new standard, which went into effect in 1985, providing how jurisdictions could terminate (or “bail out” from) coverage under the provisions of Section 4. Furthermore, after extensive hearings, Congress amended Section 2 to provide that a plaintiff could establish a violation of the Section without having to prove discriminatory purpose. 234 Dismantling Jim Crow 2LEWIS_pages_163-278.qxd 2/11/09 10:21 AM Page 234 APPENDIX 1 Timeline 1828—Thomas Dartmouth “Daddy” Rice, an actor who became famous for performing a stereotypical black character, Jim Crow, in blackface is born. 1863—President Abraham Lincoln signs the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1. The Freedman’s Bureau (officially named the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands) is established on March 3 by an act of Congress to aid newly freed slaves in the former Confederate states. Lincoln is shot on April 14. He died the next day. On May 29, President Andrew Johnson announces his policy for Reconstruction. On November 24, Mississippi becomes the first state to enact a black code, most Southern states follow suit. The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, outlawing slavery in the United States, is ratified on December 18. 1866—A Republican Congress overcomes a presidential veto and passes the Civil Rights Act on April 9, 1866, which bestows citizenship upon native-born Americans, with the exception of Native Americans. It is passed in response to black codes (laws passed in the South in 1865 that promoted segregation) and forms the basis of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Ku Klux Klan is established on December 24 by six Confederate veterans in Pulaski, Tennessee, to oppose Reconstruction and maintain white supremacy through violence. 2LEWIS_pages_163-278.qxd 2/11/09 10:21 AM Page 235 ...