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Decision on January 22, 1973 by the U.S. Supreme Court that declared a pregnant woman is entitled to have an abortion until the end of the first trimester of pregnancy without any interference by the state.

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Decision by the U.S. Supreme Court on May 15, 1972 which found that Amish children could not be placed under compulsory education past 8th grade. The parents' fundamental right to freedom of religion outweighed the state's interest in educating its children.

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Signed into law in April 11, 1968, prohibits discrimination concerning the sale, rental and financing of housing based on race, religion, national origin, and sex.

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The Fair Housing Act of 1968 prohibited discrimination concerning the sale, rental and financing of housing based on race, religion, national origin or sex. Intended as a follow-up to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the bill was the subject of a contentious debate in the Senate, but was passed quickly by the House of Representatives in the days after the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. The Fair Housing Act stands as the final great legislative achievement of the civil rights era.

Struggle for Fair Housing

Despite Supreme Court decisions such as Shelley v. Kraemer (1948) and Jones v. Mayer Co. (1968), which outlawed the exclusion of African Americans or other minorities from certain sections of cities, race-based housing patterns were still in force by the late 1960s. Those who challenged them often met with resistance, hostility and even violence.

Meanwhile, while a growing number of African-American and Hispanic members of the armed forces fought and died in the Vietnam War, on the home front their families had trouble renting or purchasing homes in certain residential areas because of their race or national origin.

In this climate, organizations such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ( NAACP), the G.I. Forum and the National Committee Against Discrimination in Housing lobbied for new fair housing legislation to be passed.

The proposed civil rights legislation of 1968 expanded on and was intended as a follow-up to the historic Civil Rights Act of 1964. The bill's original goal was to extend federal protection to civil rights workers, but it was eventually expanded to address racial discrimination in housing.

Title VIII of the proposed Civil Rights Act was known as the Fair Housing Act, a term often used as a shorthand description for the entire bill. It prohibited discrimination concerning the sale, rental and financing of housing based on race, religion, national origin and sex.

Congressional Debate

In the U.S. Senate debate over the proposed legislation, Senator Edward Brooke of Massachusetts-the first African-American ever to be elected to the Senate by popular vote-spoke personally of his return from World War II and his inability to provide a home of his choice for his new family because of his race.

In early April 1968, the bill passed the Senate, albeit by an exceedingly slim margin, thanks to the support of the Senate Republican leader, Everett Dirksen, which defeated a southern filibuster.

It then went to the House of Representatives, from which it was expected to emerge significantly weakened; the House had grown increasingly conservative as a result of urban unrest and the increasing strength and militancy of the Black Power movement.

On April 4-the day of the Senate vote-the civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, where he had gone to aid striking sanitation workers. Amid a wave of emotion-including riots, burning and looting in more than 100 cities around the country-President Lyndon B. Johnson increased pressure on Congress to pass the new civil rights legislation.

Since the summer of 1966, when King had participated in marches in Chicago calling for open housing in that city, he had been associated with the fight for fair housing. Johnson argued that the bill would be a fitting testament to the man and his legacy, and he wanted it passed prior to King's funeral in Atlanta.

After a strictly limited debate, the House passed the Fair Housing Act on April 10, and President Johnson signed it into law the following day.

Did you know? A major force behind passage of the Fair Housing Act of 1968 was the NAACP's Washington director, Clarence Mitchell Jr., who proved so effective in pushing through legislation aiding blacks that he was referred to as the "101st senator."

Impact of the Fair Housing Act

Despite the historic nature of the Fair Housing Act, and its stature as the last major act of legislation of the civil rights movement, in practice housing remained segregated in many areas of the United States in the years that followed.

From 1950 to 1980, the total black population in America's urban centers increased from 6.1 million to 15.3 million. During this same time period, white Americans steadily moved out of the cities into the suburbs, taking many of the employment opportunities blacks needed into communities where they were not welcome to live.

This trend led to the growth in urban America of ghettoes, or inner city communities with high minority populations that were plagued by unemployment, crime and other social ills.

In 1988, Congress passed the Fair Housing Amendments Act, which expanded the law to prohibit discrimination in housing based on disability or on family status (pregnant women or the presence of children under 18).

These amendments brought the enforcement of the Fair Housing Act even more squarely under the control of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which sends complaints regarding housing discrimination to be investigated by its Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity (FHEO).

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The Fair Housing Act of 1968 prohibited discrimination concerning the sale, rental and financing of housing based on race, religion, national origin or sex. Intended as a follow-up to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the bill was the subject of a contentious debate in the Senate, but was passed quickly by the House of Representatives in the days after the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968 by James Earl Ray at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis.

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Signed into law by President Johnson on August 6, 1965, it bans racial discrimination in voting practices by the federal government as well as by state and local governments.

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1965 - Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)

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1965 - Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)

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Founded on July 2, 1965, the EEOC is a federal agency that administers and enforces civil rights laws against workplace discrimination.

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Enacted July 2, 1964, outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

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President Lyndon Johnson made the passage of slain President Kennedy's civil rights bill his top priority during the first year of his administration. He enlisted the help of the NAACP, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, and key members of Congress such as Senators Hubert Humphrey (D-MN) and Everett Dirksen (R-IL), and Representatives Emanuel Celler (D-NY), and William McCulloch (R-OH), to secure the bill's passage. He also asked for support from friend and mentor Senator Richard B. Russell, Jr., (D-GA), the leader of the Southern Democrats in the Senate, who opposed the bill to the very end. Throughout the winter and spring of 1964, Johnson applied his formidable legislative acumen and skills to push the bill through Congress. Republican Senator Dirksen, the Senate minority leader, played a pivotal role in the passage of the act.

On May 26, Senator Dirksen introduced the bi-partisan Dirksen-Mansfield-Kuchel-Humphrey compromise bill as a substitute for the original version. Previously an opponent of civil rights legislation, Senator Dirksen urged Republicans to support the bill as "an idea whose time has come." On June 10, after a prolonged filibuster, the Senate invoked cloture, thereby cutting off debate. On June 19, exactly one year after President Kennedy's proposal, the compromise bill passed the Senate by a vote of 73 to 27. House approval followed, and on July 2 President Johnson signed the bill into law. The law's eleven sections prohibited discrimination in the workplace, public accommodations, public facilities, and agencies receiving federal funds, and strengthened prohibitions on school segregation and discrimination in voter registration.

Lawyer Clifford Alexander Interviewed by Camille O. Cosby in 2006

Lawyer Clifford Alexander, Jr., (b. 1933), chairman of the U.S. Equal Emplyment Opportunity Commission (1967-1968), explains the meaning of the Civil Rights Act and how both blacks and whites in government pushed for change in an interview conducted by Camille O. Cosby (b. 1945) for the National Visionary Leadership Project in 2006.

NAACP Lawyer Jack Greenberg Interviewed by Joseph Mosnier in 2011

NAACP lawyer Jack Greenberg (b. 1924) discusses the NAACP's strategy after the passage of the Civil Rights Act in an interview conducted by Joseph Mosnier (b. 1962) for the Civil Rights History Project in 2011.

"We have a great team of senators led by Senators Hubert Humphrey . . . and Thomas Kuchel . . . ."

Clarence Mitchell to Roy Wilkins, March 27, 1964

"The Civil Rights Bill is now the pending business in the Senate. The fight is on. We will need every vote that we can get."

Clarence Mitchell to Roy Wilkins, March 27, 1964
If they don't watch out they're gonna ruin it!

Comparing the pending Civil Rights legislation to a delicate cake, conservative cartoonist Gib Crockett, chief cartoonist at the Washington Star, blames extremism for ruining Minnesota Senator Hubert Humphrey's hard work. Frank Lausche, a conservative Democrat from Ohio turns toward the unseen events. This cartoon may refer to Malcolm X's "Ballot or the Bullet" speech at King Solomon Baptist Church in Detroit, which he gave on April 12, 1964. It was a militant reaction to a lack of civil rights for African Americans.

"It appears he doesn't favor amendments, after all"

As the filibuster over the issue of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 came to an end in the Senate, Southern Democrats proceeded to attach amendments to the bill, some serious enough to have eliminated its legislative efficacy. President Johnson cajoled, called in favors, and even resorted to threats, as implied in this cartoon. Hubert Humphrey, then a Democratic senator from Minnesota, favored the legislation, having urged his party to "walk into the sunshine of human rights."

"We're a hundred years late, but we're rolling"

Cartoonist Bill Mauldin compares the Senate decision to invoke cloture and end seventy-five days of filibuster in the Senate on June 10, 1964, to the American Civil War a century before. Cloture, a parliamentary procedure used in the Senate to end a filibuster-the endless speeches used to prevent the passage of legislation-forced the senators to complete their negotiations. For Mauldin, who promoted equality, the cloture vote marked progress toward passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The Killing of Civil Rights Workers Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner

On June 21, 1964, the first day of Mississippi Freedom Summer-organized by the Council of Federated Organizations-James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner drove to Neshoba County to investigate the burning of a black church following a voting rights meeting. On their way home, the civil rights workers were arrested and jailed by Deputy Sheriff Cecil Price. Price and local Klansmen took them to a remote area, where they were tortured, shot to death, and buried in an earthen dam. On June 23, Choctaw hunters found their burned car in the Bogue Chitto swamps. President Johnson launched a massive FBI search and investigation. Their bodies were discovered on August 4 outside the town of Philadelphia, Mississippi.

Civil Rights Activist Gwendolyn Simmons Interviewed by Joseph Mosnier in 2011

Civil rights activist Gwendolyn Simmons (b. 1944) discusses Freedom Summer and her shock that Goodman, Chaney and Schwerner were murdered in an interview conducted by Joseph Mosnier (b. 1962) for the Civil Rights History Project in 2011.

Passage of Civil Rights Bill, Final Vote

Artist Howard Brodie captures the hustle and bustle of the Senate floor, the sense of people in the packed gallery pressing to see everything below, and the pages rushing to the edge of the dais on June 19, 1964, when the Senate voted to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964. On July 2, 1964, President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed the bill into law. Brodie, a courtroom artist, covered the debates for CBS News.

"A Long Struggle for Freedom"

"One hundred and eighty-eight years ago this week a small band of valiant men began a long struggle for freedom. They pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor not only to found a nation, but to forge an ideal of freedom. . . ."

President Lyndon B. Johnson understood not only the historic importance of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but also the significance of the timing for its signing and the presentation of the act's meaning to the nation. The president's writers prepared six drafts of the speech before the final version was set for the teleprompter feed that Johnson used to read his televised remarks that evening. The teleprompter version and the final draft, shown here, indicate that the inclusion of the word "long" in the address was added by the president extemporaneously. The addition of this small word expressed the hard-fought, step-by-step efforts of countless Americans over the course of a century, in the slow progression towards realizing civil rights.

Teleprompter feed for Lyndon Johnson's speech at the signing ceremony of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, July 2, 1964. Page 2 - Page 3 - Page 4 - Page 5 - Page 6. Courtesy of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library and Museum, Austin, Texas (194.01.00)

Remarks of the president, final draft, July 2, 1964. Facsimile. Courtesy of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library and Museum, Austin, Texas (282.00.00)

Radio Coverage of President's Johnson's Remarks upon Signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964: The Complete Speech

President Johnson's speech was delivered just two days before the 188th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. In it the president cited the phrase "all men are created equal" and pointed out that historically many Americans were denied equal treatment. The Civil Rights Act, he said, provides that "those who are equal before God shall now all be equal" in all aspects of American life. As President Johnson said, this was a long journey to freedom.

Courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration

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The Civil Rights Act of 1964: A Long Struggle for Freedom The Civil Rights Act of 1964

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President Lyndon Johnson made the passage of slain President Kennedy's civil rights bill his top priority during the first year of his administration. He enlisted the help of the NAACP, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, and key members of Congress such as Senators Hubert Humphrey (D-MN) and Everett Dirksen (R-IL), and Representatives Emanuel Celler (D-NY), and William McCulloch (R-OH), to secure the bill's passage.

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Ratified by the states on January 23, 1964, the 24th Amendment to the Constitution outlawed the poll tax for all federal elections.

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On August 28, 1963, more than 200,000 Americans gathered at a rally known as the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The march culminated in MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech.

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1963 - MLK Jailed, Letter from Birmingham Jail

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1963 - MLK Jailed, Letter from Birmingham Jail

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Open letter on April 16, 1963 from MLK defending the strategy of nonviolent resistance to racism. "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

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Movement by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to bring national attention to the efforts of local black leaders to desegregate public facilities. Demonstrators were hit with high-pressure fire hoses, clubbed by police officers and attacked by dogs.

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They were civil rights activists who rode buses in order to challenge the non-enforcement of some of the United States Supreme Court decisions.

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Four black men sat down at a segregated lunch counter in Greensboro, N.C. and were refused service and sat peacefully until the store closed.

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The Little Rock Nine was a group of nine African American students enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in 1957. Their enrollment was followed by the Little Rock Crisis, in which the students were initially prevented from entering the racially segregated school by Orval Faubus, the Governor of Arkansas.

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Emmett Till was an African American teenager who was lynched at the age of 14 after reportedly flirting with a white woman.

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On December 1, 1955 Rosa Parks refused to obey the bus driver's order to give up her seat in the colored section to a white passenger.

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Bet You Didn't Know: Rosa Parks | History

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1948 - Desegregation of the Armed Forces

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1948 - Desegregation of the Armed Forces

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Executive Order 9981 signed by President Truman on July 26, 1948 that abolished racial discrimination in the U.S. Armed Forces

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Jackie Robinson was the first African American to play Major League baseball outside of a segregated black league. He became a milestone for racial equality.

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Granted African American men the right to vote.

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The amendment grants citizenship to "all persons born or naturalized in the United States" which included former slaves who had just been freed after the Civil War.

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The 13th amendment abolished slavery in the United States.