Civil Rights in the United States

Can a prosecutor appeal an "not guilty" verdict?  NOPE!


Civil War Amendments

Amendment XIII

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Amendment XIV

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a state, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such state, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such state.
Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any state shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.
Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

Amendment XV

Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.


Woodrow Wilson's work in a pro-Klan movie:

Major Civil Rights Laws:

The Civil Rights Act (CRA) of 1964 

• Prohibits discrimination in employment on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, or sex.
• Prohibits discrimination in federally funded programs or activities on the basis of race, color, or national origin
• Prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, or national origin in public accommodations.

Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA), enacted shortly after the CRA and which was designed to prevent the disenfranchisement of black voters in the South, prohibits voting practices that discriminate on the basis of race, color, or membership in a language minority group.



The Fair Housing Act (FHA), which was originally enacted in 1968, prohibits discrimination in the sale or rental of housing on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, disability, or familial status.



The Equal Pay Act of 1963 prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex with regard to the compensation paid to men and women for substantially equal work performed in the same establishment




Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. Like Title VI of the CRA, Title IX’s prohibition on discrimination is tied to federal funding. Specifically, Title IX prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in federally funded education programs or activities.




The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in federally conducted and federally funded programs or activities, as well as in employment by the federal government and by federal contractors.



The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), which is the most recently enacted piece of major civil rights legislation in the nation, prohibits discrimination based on disability in employment, public services, public accommodations, transportation, and telecommunications.