Sourced history — racist.systems

1857 US — South

Dred Scott v. Sandford strips Black Americans of citizenship

In Dred Scott v. Sandford, the US Supreme Court ruled 7–2 that people of African descent could not be citizens of the United States and that the federal government had no power to regulate slavery in the territories. Chief Justice Roger Taney wrote that Black Americans had 'no rights which …

Source: Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 US (19 How.) 393 (1857). US Supreme Court. · view ↗

1865 US — South

The Freedmen's Bureau and the abandoned promise of land

Congress established the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands in March 1865. The Bureau distributed food and clothing to freedpeople and white Southerners displaced by the war, established approximately 4,000 schools and 100 hospitals, and oversaw labor contracts during the early Reconstruction period. Special Field Orders No. 15, issued …

Source: Act to establish a Bureau for the Relief of Freedmen and Refugees, Pub. L. No. 38-90, 13 Stat. 507 (March 3, 1865). Annotated in Eric Foner, ``The Second Founding`` (W. W. Norton, 2019). · view ↗

1865 US — South

The Thirteenth Amendment's punishment clause and convict leasing

The Thirteenth Amendment (1865) abolished slavery 'except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.' Within a year, every former Confederate state had passed 'Black Codes' criminalizing vagrancy, contract-breaking, and unemployment, which were then enforced almost exclusively against freedpeople. Convicted under these laws, Black men …

Source: US Constitution, amend. XIII, § 1 (ratified December 6, 1865). See Douglas A. Blackmon, ``Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II`` (Anchor, 2008). · view ↗

1868 US — South

The Fourteenth Amendment and its early gutting

The Fourteenth Amendment, ratified July 9, 1868, established birthright citizenship, the Privileges or Immunities Clause, the Due Process Clause, and the Equal Protection Clause. Its drafters intended it to constitutionalize the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and bind the states to the federal protection of freedpeople. Within five years the …

Source: US Constitution, amend. XIV (ratified July 9, 1868). See Eric Foner, ``The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution`` (W. W. Norton, 2019). · view ↗

1871 US — South

Federal Klan prosecution under the Enforcement Acts

The Enforcement Acts of 1870 and 1871 — the Klan Act among them — gave the federal government authority to prosecute conspiracies to deprive citizens of constitutional rights, and authorized President Ulysses S. Grant to suspend habeas corpus where racial terror was systemic. Federal prosecutors brought hundreds of cases in …

Source: Civil Rights Act of 1871 (Ku Klux Klan Act), Pub. L. No. 42-22, 17 Stat. 13. See Carol Anderson, ``White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide`` (Bloomsbury, 2016). · view ↗

1873 US — South

Colfax, Cruikshank, and the federal retreat from Reconstruction

On Easter Sunday, April 13, 1873, a white paramilitary force attacked Black militiamen defending the Grant Parish courthouse in Colfax, Louisiana. Estimates of the death toll range from 62 to around 150, almost all Black. The federal government prosecuted three white perpetrators under the Enforcement Act of 1870. United States …

Source: United States v. Cruikshank, 92 US 542 (1876). US Supreme Court. See Charles Lane, ``The Day Freedom Died`` (Henry Holt, 2008). · view ↗

1877 US — South

The Compromise of 1877 ends federal Reconstruction

The disputed presidential election of 1876 between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel Tilden was resolved through a backroom agreement negotiated in part at the Wormley Hotel in Washington. Hayes received the presidency; in exchange, federal troops were withdrawn from the last three Southern states (Florida, Louisiana, South Carolina) where they …

Source: C. Vann Woodward, ``Reunion and Reaction: The Compromise of 1877 and the End of Reconstruction`` (Little, Brown, 1951; rev. ed. Oxford UP, 1991). See Eric Foner, ``Reconstruction`` (1988). · view ↗

1890 US — South

The Mississippi Plan: writing disfranchisement into the constitution

The Mississippi Constitutional Convention of 1890 produced the template for Jim Crow voter suppression. The new state constitution imposed a poll tax, a literacy test administered at the discretion of local registrars, a 'good character' clause, and a residency rule designed to disqualify sharecroppers who moved seasonally. Convention president Solomon …

Source: Mississippi Constitution of 1890, art. 12, §§ 241–244. See Carol Anderson, ``One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy`` (Bloomsbury, 2018), ch. 1. · view ↗

1896 US — South

Plessy v. Ferguson enshrines 'separate but equal'

The US Supreme Court ruled 7–1 that state laws requiring racial segregation in public accommodations did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment, provided the separate facilities were 'equal.' In practice they never were. Plessy provided the constitutional cover for Jim Crow laws across the American South — in schools, transportation, restaurants, …

Source: Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 US 537 (1896). US Supreme Court. · view ↗

1910 US — South

Confederate monuments: the construction dates

The Southern Poverty Law Center's ``Whose Heritage?`` report (updated 2019) inventories 1,747 Confederate monuments, place names, and public symbols. The dedications cluster around two specific periods: roughly 1900–1920, when Jim Crow disfranchisement was being codified, and the 1950s–1960s, when massive resistance to civil-rights desegregation was at its peak. The construction …

Source: Southern Poverty Law Center, ``Whose Heritage? Public Symbols of the Confederacy`` (3rd ed., 2019). Database lists 1,747 symbols with dedication dates. · view ↗

1921 US — South

Tulsa: the Greenwood massacre

Over the night of May 31 and the day of June 1, 1921, white rioters destroyed the prosperous Black Greenwood neighborhood of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Thirty-five city blocks were burned. The officially confirmed death toll has been revised upward as remains are recovered — estimates range from 75 to upwards of …

Source: Final Report of the Tulsa Race Riot Commission (2001). Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921. · view ↗

1930 US — Midwest

Sundown towns: the residential-segregation map outside the South

James Loewen's ``Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism`` documents thousands of US municipalities that excluded Black residents — by ordinance, by violence, by collective custom, or by signs at the town line warning Black travelers not to be found in the township after dark. The practice peaked between …

Source: James W. Loewen, ``Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism`` (New Press, 2005). Database maintained at sundown.tougaloo.edu. · view ↗

1933 US — Northeast

Home Owners' Loan Corporation Maps and Residential Security

<p>The Home Owners' Loan Corporation was established by the Home Owners' Loan Act of 1933 as a New Deal mortgage relief agency. Its primary purpose was to refinance distressed mortgages to prevent foreclosure during the Depression. As part of that work, HOLC produced 'Residential Security Maps' for over 200 American …

Source: HOLC City Survey Files, National Archives Record Group 195, Residential Security Maps and Area Description Files for over 200 American cities, 1935-1940 · view ↗

1934 US — Northeast

The FHA Underwriting Manual writes racial exclusion into federal credit

The National Housing Act of 1934 established the Federal Housing Administration and the insured-mortgage system that built the modern American homeownership market. The accompanying FHA Underwriting Manual (1935 and subsequent editions) instructed underwriters that 'inharmonious racial or nationality groups' were a risk to neighborhood stability and that 'subdivision regulations and …

Source: Federal Housing Administration, ``Underwriting Manual: Underwriting and Valuation Procedure under Title II of the National Housing Act`` (Washington: GPO, 1935, 1936, 1938, 1947). Discussed in Richard Rothstein, ``The Color of Law`` (Liveright, 2017), ch. 4. · view ↗

1934 US — Northeast

The Federal Housing Administration and the Color of Underwriting

<p>The Federal Housing Administration was created by the National Housing Act of 1934 to insure mortgages on terms that private lenders would not offer on their own balance sheets. The agency underwrote roughly a third of all new single-family home purchases between 1934 and 1962, transforming the structure of American …

Source: FHA Underwriting Manual, Federal Housing Administration, Washington DC, multiple editions 1935-1947

1938 US — Northeast

HOLC redlining maps codify federal mortgage discrimination

The Home Owners' Loan Corporation produced 'residential security maps' for over 200 US cities between 1935 and 1940. Neighborhoods were graded A through D and color-coded — green, blue, yellow, red. Predominantly Black neighborhoods received D grades almost universally; nearby neighborhoods were downgraded for proximity. The grades fed into Federal …

Source: Robert K. Nelson et al., 'Mapping Inequality: Redlining in New Deal America' (2016–ongoing). University of Richmond Digital Scholarship Lab. · view ↗

1940 US — Midwest

The Great Migration as policy aftermath

Between roughly 1910 and 1970, about six million Black Americans moved from the rural South to the urban North, Midwest, and West. Isabel Wilkerson's ``The Warmth of Other Suns`` documents the migration as a flight not from poverty in the abstract but from specific policy regimes: sharecropping debt, Jim Crow …

Source: Isabel Wilkerson, ``The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration`` (Random House, 2010). · view ↗

1944 US — Northeast

The GI Bill as written, the GI Bill as administered

The Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944 — the GI Bill — was racially neutral on its face. It promised tuition assistance, low-interest home loans, and unemployment insurance to all returning veterans. In practice, administration was delegated to the states, and in the Jim Crow South that meant white local officials …

Source: Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, Pub. L. No. 78-346, 58 Stat. 284. See Ira Katznelson, ``When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America`` (W. W. Norton, 2005), ch. 5. · view ↗

1947 US — Northeast

Levittown: federally subsidized suburbs sold whites-only

William Levitt built three Levittowns — on Long Island (1947), in Bucks County, Pennsylvania (1952), and in Burlington County, New Jersey (1958) — using federally insured FHA and VA construction loans. Each came with a restrictive covenant prohibiting sale or rental to anyone 'other than members of the Caucasian race.' …

Source: Richard Rothstein, ``The Color of Law`` (Liveright, 2017), ch. 4. Original Levittown deed restrictions on file with the Nassau County Clerk. · view ↗

1948 US — Midwest

Shelley v. Kraemer holds racial covenants judicially unenforceable

In a unanimous decision, the US Supreme Court ruled that racially restrictive housing covenants — contractual clauses preventing the sale of property to non-white buyers — could not be enforced by state courts without violating the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The ruling did not invalidate the covenants …

Source: Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 US 1 (1948). US Supreme Court. · view ↗

1949 US — Northeast

Urban renewal: federal highway funds through Black neighborhoods

Title I of the Housing Act of 1949 funded 'slum clearance' at two-thirds federal cost. The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 funded the Interstate system at ninety percent federal cost, and local officials selected the routes. Across the country, the cleared neighborhoods and the highway corridors overwhelmingly cut through Black, …

Source: Housing Act of 1949, Pub. L. No. 81-171, 63 Stat. 413. Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, Pub. L. No. 84-627, 70 Stat. 374. See Robert A. Caro, ``The Power Broker`` (Knopf, 1974), and Mindy Fullilove, ``Root Shock`` (One World, 2004). · view ↗

1951 US — Northeast

Henrietta Lacks and the consent gap in medical research

In January 1951, Henrietta Lacks, a Black woman from Turners Station, Maryland, was treated for cervical cancer at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Without her or her family's knowledge or consent, tissue samples taken during her treatment were cultured. Her cells — the HeLa line — became the first immortal human cell …

Source: Rebecca Skloot, ``The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks`` (Crown, 2010). NIH, HeLa Genome Data Use Agreement (2013, revised). · view ↗

1954 US — Midwest

Brown v. Board of Education overrules 'separate but equal'

The US Supreme Court ruled unanimously that 'separate educational facilities are inherently unequal' and that racial segregation of public schools violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, overruling Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) in the context of public education. Implementation was slow and met with massive resistance, including the …

Source: Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 US 483 (1954). US Supreme Court. · view ↗

1957 US — South

Massive resistance to Brown: the school-closing strategy

Three years after Brown II's 'all deliberate speed' formulation (1955), Virginia Governor Lindsay Almond closed nine public schools in Charlottesville, Norfolk, and Warren County rather than integrate them. Prince Edward County, Virginia, closed its public schools entirely from 1959 to 1964; white children attended private 'segregation academies' on state tuition …

Source: Cooper v. Aaron, 358 US 1 (1958). Griffin v. School Board of Prince Edward County, 377 US 218 (1964). See Carol Anderson, ``White Rage`` (Bloomsbury, 2016), ch. 4. · view ↗

1962 US — Midwest

Chicago's high-rise public housing as containment policy

The Robert Taylor Homes opened in 1962 along South State Street: twenty-eight 16-story towers, 4,415 units, built almost entirely for Black tenants. Cabrini-Green, on the Near North Side, had a similar profile. Both were sited inside or against existing Black neighborhoods rather than dispersed across the metropolitan area. Beryl Satter, …

Source: Beryl Satter, ``Family Properties: Race, Real Estate, and the Exploitation of Black Urban America`` (Metropolitan Books, 2009). Chicago Housing Authority, ``Plan for Transformation`` (2000). · view ↗

1964 US — South

The Civil Rights Act of 1964

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Title II addressed public accommodations; Title VI addressed federally funded programs; Title VII addressed employment and established the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The Act was the most significant civil-rights legislation since …

Source: Civil Rights Act of 1964, Pub. L. No. 88-352, 78 Stat. 241. · view ↗

1965 US — South

The Voting Rights Act of 1965

The Voting Rights Act outlawed discriminatory voting practices including literacy tests, prohibited the alteration of election procedures in covered jurisdictions without federal preclearance (Section 5), and authorized federal observers at polling places. Section 5 preclearance and the Section 4(b) coverage formula were the operational core of the Act. They required …

Source: Voting Rights Act of 1965, Pub. L. No. 89-110, 79 Stat. 437. · view ↗

1967 US — Northeast

Qualified immunity: a doctrine the Supreme Court invented

Qualified immunity — the doctrine that shields government officials, including police, from civil-rights lawsuits unless the plaintiff can identify a prior court decision with nearly identical facts holding the conduct unconstitutional — is not in any statute. The Supreme Court constructed it in ``Pierson v. Ray`` (1967) and expanded it …

Source: Pierson v. Ray, 386 US 547 (1967). Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 US 800 (1982). 42 USC § 1983. See Joanna Schwartz, ``Shielded: How the Police Became Untouchable`` (Viking, 2023). · view ↗

1968 US — Northeast

The Fair Housing Act

Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 prohibited discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of housing based on race, color, religion, or national origin. Sex was added in 1974; disability and familial status in 1988. Enforcement authority is split between the Department of Housing and Urban Development …

Source: Fair Housing Act, Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, Pub. L. No. 90-284, 82 Stat. 73. · view ↗

1972 US — South

The Tuskegee Syphilis Study and the formation of bioethics review

From 1932 to 1972 the US Public Health Service ran the 'Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male' on 399 Black sharecroppers in Macon County, Alabama, who had latent syphilis. The men were told they were being treated for 'bad blood.' They were not treated. After penicillin became …

Source: National Research Act of 1974, Pub. L. No. 93-348, 88 Stat. 342. Final Report of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study Ad Hoc Advisory Panel (HEW, 1973). See Harriet A. Washington, ``Medical Apartheid`` (Doubleday, 2007). · view ↗