Today in 1857 - The Dred Scott case was ruled on.

[The Straight Story]

1857

Supreme Court rules on the Dred Scott case. On March 6, the Supreme Court decided that an African-American could not be a citizen of the U.S., and thus had no rights of citizenship. The decision sharpened the national debate over slavery.

http://lcweb4.loc.gov/ammem/aap/timeline.html

[TahitiNut]

1. I gotta wonder how some current Justices are commemorating the anniversary.

:grr:

[tachyon]

2. Thomas is drinking Dom Perignon?

...?

[Virginia Dare]

8. Wouldn't doubt it..

that's one screwed up dude.

[rasputin1952]

3. The true horror of that decision was to place the US directly

into the path of the upcoming Civil War. It justified slavery and the ownership of people on the Federal level and tried to force Northern States to return refugee slaves. The Kansas-Nebraska Act, John Brown's Raid and a host of other things came in that era...but the Dred Scott decision essentially said that blacks were subhuman and had no rights whatsoever. It reinforced the horrid notion that some human beings were nothing more than property, a dog had more rights than some segments of society...:(

About 600,000 Americans would lose their lives beginning in 1861 until 1865, some to keep "decisions" like Dred Scott a part of law, some to overturn it and grant freedom to those who had suffered under slavery for a century and a half. I think the loss of life was a terrible price to pay, but there are times when other answers are not forthcoming...:(

[stillcool]

4. and it only took another..

...107 years to get the Civil Rights Act passed. I wonder how many leaders tried to do what Martin Luther King did and failed. Maybe people weren't ready yet.

[The Straight Story]

5. Damned sad really

And I am sure there were many leaders who tried, people in power though do what they do now - use fear to keep people complacent.

[Virginia Dare]

7. The Dem Party was ruled by the Kluckers..

as recently as the 1920's. It's amazing how far we've come. Admittedly not far enough.

[crimsonblue]

12. We haven't come far at all... just shiftede our bigotry elsewhere..

After the Civil War, it became the Chinese, then Spanish, then Mexicans, then Japanese, then Communists, then black again, then gays and youth, then the poor and mentally disabled, then Iraqis (part 1), then Islam, and now Iraqis (part 2) and "Islamofascism". We would like to think we have come a long way, but we just substituted foreigners for the minorities in our country. All thanks to our lovely Anglo-Saxon Judeo-Christian ancestry, which has convinced itself that there is a continual threat out there seeking to destroy them (maybe the embodiment of fears of the Devil?).

[stillcool]

13. I don't think it took President Johnson...

to get civil rights passed. I think it took a whole lot of people trying and dying to find their way out of servitude.
1790 Only white male adult property-owners have the right to vote.

1810 Last religious prerequisite for voting is eliminated.

1850 Property ownership and tax requirements eliminated by 1850. Almost all adult white males could vote.
1855 Connecticut adopts the nation's first literacy test for voting. Massachusetts follows suit in 1857. The tests were implemented to discriminate against Irish-Catholic immigrants.

1870 The 15th Amendment is passed. It gives former slaves the right to vote and protects the voting rights of adult male citizens of any race.

1889 Florida adopts a poll tax. Ten other southern states will implement poll taxes.
1890 Mississippi adopts a literacy test to keep African Americans from voting. Numerous other states—not just in the south—also establish literacy tests. However, the tests also exclude many whites from voting. To get around this, states add grandfather clauses that allow those who could vote before 1870, or their descendants, to vote regardless of literacy or tax qualifications.

1913 The 17th Amendment calls for members of the U.S. Senate to be elected directly by the people instead of State Legislatures.
1915 Oklahoma was the last state to append a grandfather clause to its literacy requirement (1910). In Guinn v. United States the Supreme Court rules that the clause is in conflict with the 15th Amendment, thereby outlawing literacy tests for federal elections.

1920 The 19th Amendment guarantees women's suffrage.
1924 Indian Citizenship Act grants all Native Americans the rights of citizenship, including the right to vote in federal elections.

1944 The Supreme Court outlaws "white primaries" in Smith v. Allwright (Texas). In Texas, and other states, primaries were conducted by private associations, which, by definion, could exclude whomever they chose. The Court declares the nomination process to be a public process bound by the terms of 15th Amendment.

1957 The first law to implement the 15th amendment, the Civil Rights Act, is passed. The Act set up the Civil Rights Commission—among its duties is to investigate voter discrimination

1960 In Gomillion v. Lightfoot (Alabama) the Court outlaws "gerrymandering."
1961 The 23rd Amendment allows voters of the District of Columbia to participate in presidential elections.
1964 The 24th Amendment bans the poll tax as a requirement for voting in federal elections.
1965 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., mounts a voter registration drive in Selma, Alabama, to draw national attention to African-American voting rights.
1965 The Voting Rights Act protects the rights of minority voters and eliminates voting barriers such as the literacy test. The Act is expanded and renewed in 1970, 1975, and 1982.
1966 The Supreme Court, in Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections, eliminates the poll tax as a qualification for voting in any election. A poll tax was still in use in Alabama, Mississippi, Texas, and Virginia.
1966 The Court upholds the Voting Rights Act in South Carolina v. Katzenbach.

1970 Literacy requirements are banned for five years by the 1970 renewal of the Voting Rights Act. At the time, eighteen states still have a literacy requirement in place. In Oregon v. Mitchell, the Court upholds the ban on literacy tests, which is made permanent in 1975. Judge Hugo Black, writing the court's opinion, cited the "long history of the discriminatory use of literacy tests to disenfranchise voters on account of their race" as the reason for their decision.
1971 The 26th amendment sets the minimum voting age at 18.
1972 In Dunn v. Blumstein, the Supreme Court declares that lengthy residence requirements for voting in state and local elections is unconstitutional and suggests that 30 days is an ample period.
1995 The Federal "Motor Voter Law" takes effect, making it easier to register to vote.
2003 Federal Voting Standards and Procedures Act requires states to streamline registration, voting, and other election procedures.

[Virginia Dare]

6. I went to Roger B. Taney Jr. High School..

which is now majority black, and it's been renamed, but isn't that a ball kicker?

[EFerrari]

9. I grew up in a segregated town in Silicon Valley.

I didn't even know it was segregated because 1) my whole family was passing and 2) because it was segregated and there were no other voices there.

Things that set you back.

[Virginia Dare]

15. I think many of us grew up that way...

I wonder how many of us out there are running around claiming "American Indian" heritage to explain the dark skin, when in actuality they aren't American Indian at all.

[crimsonblue]

10. The more actually read and research about the country's history..

the more I realize that way too many leaders in our history were complete retards, or atleast selectively democratic. I guess the axiom holds : " In a hierarchy, every person rises to their level of incompetence". Dubya sure proved that even the mentally challenged can be president. Yay us!

[Johonny]

11. Bushes favorite case

most people think it's because he uses it as an abortion code word. I think it's because he agrees with the decision.

[Bozita]

14. Today in 1932 - Five killed in Ford Hunger March

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2974190

"They turned the water hose on us first. That didn’t stop us. We kept going. Then they had about eight mounted policemen come through to break our ranks. That didn’t stop us. We got within about 40 or 50 yards of the Ford employment office on Miller Road when three cars came roaring out the gate. One guy had a machine gun over his shoulder, riding on the running board of the car. I don’t know what the other guy had on the passenger side, but this guy was standing on the driver’s side. There were three or four other cars that followed them. All of a sudden gun shots were heard. People began to scream and scatter. There were five guys who got killed – four of them were white and one of them Black."

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