15 Amendment Dbq

Between 1865 and 1870, the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments outlawed slavery which "provided equal protection under the law, guaranteed citizenship, and protected the right to vote" (United States). Unfortunately, individual states continued to allow unfair treatment of minorities and passed the 'Jim Crow' laws allowing segregation of public facilities. "The Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. It required equal access to public places and employment and enforced desegregation of schools and the right to vote" (United States). Although this attempt did not end discrimination, it did open doors to many people.
Before the 13th Amendment, there were many laws that protected slavery but those laws were just temporary to multiple states. For example, the Emancipation Proclamation declared that "all persons held as slaves within any State … the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free" ("U.S. Constitution"). Unfortunately, this proclamation did not end slavery in the nation. President Lincoln soon realized that a constitutional amendment would be the most
guaranteed abolishment of slavery. The 13th Amendment was needed to put an end to slavery once and for all. According to Section 1 of the 13th Amendment, "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the Untied States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction" (United States).
July 9, 1868, the 14th Amendment granted citizenship to "'all persons born or naturalized in the United States,' which included former slaves recently freed" ("U.S. Constitution"). The amendment had been rejected by most southern states but was ratified again by the required three-fourths of the states. The Reconstruction Amendment forbids any state to deny an person "life, liberty or property, without due process of law" ("U.S. Constitution"). In 1896, Supreme Court case, Plessy v. Ferguson, ruled that 'separate but equal' facilities were considered sufficient to satisfy the 14th Amendment. However, in 1954, "the court reversed the Plessy decision to bring back the era of government-sanctioned segregation to an end ("U.S. Constitution").
Lastly in 1870, the 15th Amendment declared 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" (United States).
By the late 1870s, multiple discriminatory practices were used to prevent minorities from exercising their right to vote, especially in the South. The 15th Amendment was in reality only the beginning of a struggle for equality that would continue for more than century before African Americans could begin to participate fully in American public and life. "The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was signed into law which was to overcome legal barriers from the exercise to vote and prohibits racial discrimination in voting" ("U.S.
Constitution").
June 6, 1963, President John F. Kennedy urged the nation to take action toward guaranteeing equal treatment of every American regardless of race. On July 2, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson with Martin Luther King, Jr., Dorothy Height, John Lewis, and other civil rights leaders in attendance, signed the bill into law, "declaring once and for all that discrimination for any reason on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin was illegal in the United States of America" (United States)." The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments all greatly expanded the Civil Rights of Americans.