Reconstruction of two segregated classrooms. Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, Alabama

Topics on the Page

 

1964 Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act of 1965

 

Title IX

 

Americans for Disability Act of 1990

 

Activists for Civil Rights on the Page

 

• Muhammad Ali
• Ruth Bader Ginsburg
• Babe Didrikson Zaharias
• Helen Keller 
• Bayard Rustin 

 

 eBook Connections: Race, Gender and Disability

 

 

Race:  1964 Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act of 1965

 

 

A Long Struggle for Freedom, Library of Congress

 

 

 Primary Sources

 

Full Text of the 14th Amendment

 

Civil Rights Act of 1866

 

• First federal law to declare equal rights under the law for all people living within the jurisdiction of the United States

 

1964 Civil Rights Act

 

• This act outlawed discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, required equal access to public places and employment, and enforced desegregation of schools and the right to vote

 

President Signs Historic Bill

 

 

The 50th Anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, Insights on Law & Society, American Bar Association (Winter 2014)

 

 

President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act of 1965 while Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and others look on

 

 

1965 Voting Rights Act

 

• "Passed in 1965 to ensure state and local governments do not pass laws or policies that deny American citizens the equal right to vote based on race."  Link to the Voting Rights Act from the Brennan Center for Justice

Shelby County v. Holder (2014)

 

Shelby County v. Holder and the Memory of Civil Rights Progress, National Constitution Center (November 25, 2013)

 

School Integration, Washington, D.C., 1955

 

Learning Activities

 

Voting Rights, Then and Now

 

 

Congress Protects the Right to Vote, National Archives

 

 

The Civil Rights Act of 1964, from Reading Like A Historian, Stanford History Education Group

 

 

Civil Rights Act of 1964, Wisconsin Historical Society

 

 

 

 

Image from Office of Gender Equity, University of Hawaii at Manoa

 

Gender: Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972

 

Title IX at 40, Teaching Tolerance

 

 

Gender Equality in Athletics

 

 

Title IX Frequently Asked Questions, NCAA

 

 

Title IX--Gender Equity in Education, American Civil Liberties Union

 

 

What is Title IX, CNN Video

 

 

Why Girls and Boys Should Play Sports Together, TEDX University of Nevada (January 2018)

 

 

 

 

College Women Lacrosse Players

 

Learning Activities

 

How Outstanding Women in STEM Fields Overcame Obstacles?

 

 

The 19 Girls Who Made Little League World Series History

 

 

The Impact of Title IX

 

 

Striving for Gender Equity in Athletics, Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History

 

Should Girls and Boys Play Sports Together?

 

Lesson Plan:  Defying Gender Stereotypes, PBS Newshour 

 

Issues Related to Girls and Boys Competing with and Against Each Other in Sports and Physical Activity Settings, Women's Sports Foundation

 

 

  Link to Babe Didrikson Zaharias, Woman Athlete and Equality Pioneer

 

 

 

 

 

Disability:  Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990

 

 

Americans with Disabilities Act, U.S. Department of Labor

 

• "A civil rights law that prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities in all areas of public life, including jobs, schools, transportation, and all public and private places that are open to the general public."  Source:  What is the Americans with Disabilities Act?
  

 

 

 

 

Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), 1990

 

 

Americans with Disabilities Amendments Act (2008)

 

 

Learning Activities

 

Equal Treatment, Equal Access:  Raising Awareness about People with Disabilities and Their Struggle for Equal Rights, ADL (Anti-Defamation League)

 

Classroom Activities Examining the Civil Rights Act and ADA, Teaching Tolerance

 

 

Lesson Plans, Robert and Elizabeth Dole Archive and Special Collections, University of Kansas

 

 

For more resources, link to Disability History Museum

 

Link to Helen Keller, Author and Political Activist

 

 

Link to Disability Rights and Justice Movement

 

Meet and Learn more about some of the most influential and iconic activists behind many different civil rights based issues and movements

 

 

Muhammad Ali- Civil Rights Pioneer

 

Muhammad Ali, 1967

 

• Lived January 17, 1942- June 3, 2016
• Born "Cassius Clay", later changed his name after his conversion to Islam because he wanted to rid himself of his slave name 
• Most well known for:
• Former Boxing Heavyweight World Champion
• Nickname: The Greatest  
• Refusing to fight in the Vietnam war on the basis of religion
• As a result he was jailed, striped of his World Title and his boxing license
• His inspirational and often heavy-handed quotes on equality in America

• “Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go ten thousand miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights?” Ali, February, 17, 1966. 

• “I am a Muslim and there is nothing Islamic about killing innocent people in Paris, San Bernardino, or anywhere else in the world. True Muslims know that the ruthless violence of so-called Islamic Jihadists goes against the very tenets of our religion.” – Ali, 2015.

•  Learn more about Ali and his activism here with this lesson plan from PBS

 

 

 

Ruth Bader Ginsburg- Gender Equality Pioneer

 

Link to Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Notorious RBG

 

• Lived March 15, 1933- September 18, 2020
• Unofficial Nickname: The Notorious RBG
• Most well known for:
• Served as a Supreme Court Justice (1993-2020)
• Second Women to ever serve on the court 
• First Jewish Women to ever serve on the court 
• In 1970 she co-founder The Women Rights Law Reporter, the first law journal in the US devoted to gender equality issues
• In 1972, she became the first female professor at Columbia Law School to receive full tenure
• In 1973 she argued her first case before the Supreme Court, the first of many  

• One of these cases, Moritz v Commissioner of Internal Revenue, was made into a full length feature film entitled "On the Basis of Sex" staring Felicity Jones as RBG 

• To learn more about RBG and her life achievements click here  

 

 

• To learn about more influential and iconic figures from the Civil Rights Movement click here

• List contains but is not limited to

• Martin Luther King Jr., MLK- Preacher and Civil Rights activist

• Malcom X- Civil Rights activist 

• Diane Nash- leader of the Nashville student movement  

• Ralph Bunche- First African- American man to win a a Nobel Peace Prize

• John Lewis- Civil Rights activist and former US Congressman

• Huey P. Newton- Civil Rights activist  

 

 

U.S. states with Equal Rights Amendments

 

Blue = Passed into law

Yellow = Passed by one chamber of state legislature

 

Image on Wikimedia Commons by Rayne VanDunem (September, 2017)