Docsteach: From Dred Scott to Civil Rights Act of 1875: Eighteen Years of Change

In 1857, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the Dred Scott decision that African-Americans were not citizens of the United States. Yet within 18 years, Black Americans would not only have citizenship, but would be guaranteed the right to vote and equal access to transportation, housing, and other facilities by the Civil Rights Act of 1875. Although many of these rights would be lost through the rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1883, when the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was found unconstitutional, and in 1896, when the Plessy v. Ferguson ruling established the 'separate but equal' doctrine, these gains made in the 1860s and 1870s were foundational to the Civil Rights progress of the latter 20th century.