Chronology of the Racial Laws of the United States

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In this chronology are federal laws ( state laws ) and Federal laws ( federal laws ) and decisions of the US Supreme Court compiled and other senior US courts that a discrimination of ethnic minorities had within the United States that is. The chronology also includes laws and supreme court decisions with which such laws and judgments were repealed.

Laws regulating immigration to the United States are also included because they determine whether or not family reunification is possible.

17th century

1664 As the first American colony led Maryland a mixed marriage ban ( anti-miscegenation law a).

18th century

1789 On March 4, 1789, the Constitution of the United States of America ( legal text of 1789 ) came into force. In this original text of the American constitution, states that so wished to keep and import slaves were expressly permitted.
1790 The first US Naturalization Act in 1790 determined that only “ free white persons” could acquire American citizenship .

19th century

1830 The Indian Removal Act , signed on May 28, 1830, formed the legal basis for Indians living east of the Mississippi River to be relocated to regions further west without their consent.
1849 In the California Constitution, passed in 1849 , the right to vote was restricted to "white male citizens of the United States" (German: white male citizens of the United States ).
1850 In 1850 California passed a law that made marriages between whites and blacks ( "negroes or mulattos" ) illegal and invalid.

In the same year, a law came into force in California, whereby foreign prospectors were subject to a tax ( foreign miners license tax ). This tax, which initially amounted to $ 20 a month and was unaffordable for the majority of prospectors, was primarily intended to displace Hispanic miners; however, many Chinese were also affected. In 1851 the tax was reduced to $ 3 and later increased to $ 4. In 1868 the US Supreme Court declared the tax unconstitutional. The wrongly paid taxes were not refunded. See also: California Gold Rush .

1854 In the “The People Vs. Hall, “the California Supreme Court ruled that Chinese witnesses should not be admitted to court. The Chinese migrants living in California were largely deprived of the opportunity to assert any kind of legal claims in court. The decision remained in force until 1873.
1857 The Supreme Court ruled in the Dred Scott v. Sandford that blacks, slaves or not, could never get citizenship of the United States. Furthermore, the abolition of slavery by Congress would be unconstitutional, as it would constitute expropriation without due process in the sense of the 5th Amendment to the Constitution.
1865 With the 13th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States , ratified on December 18, 1865, slavery was finally abolished in the entire territory of the United States.
1868 The 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States , which came into force on July 9, 1868, redefined the concept of citizenship and promised equal civil rights for all people born or naturalized in the United States, regardless of race.
1870 On February 3, 1870, the 15th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States came into force, according to which all citizens (only men) of the USA were to be granted the right to vote, regardless of their race, skin color or previous enslavement .
1875 On March 1, the Civil Rights Act of 1875 came into effect. The content was equal access to all institutions of public life regardless of race, skin color or previous slave status. It is declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court eight years later.

The Page Act , passed on March 3 of the same year, banned the immigration of women from China, Japan and other East and Southeast Asian countries who entered or were brought into the country for the purpose of prostitution . The Page Act was aimed not only to a ligature of the Sino-US prostitution and the traditionally popular in China polygamy from. Since, due to ethnic prejudices, Chinese migrant women were willingly assessed as prostitutes at this time in case of doubt, the law led to the fact that the influx of Chinese women into the USA was significantly reduced overall.

1878 In the case of Plaintiff Ah Yup, the Federal Circuit Court in San Francisco ruled or confirmed that Chinese cannot acquire American citizenship.
1880 After thousands of Chinese came to the country with the Californian gold rush (1848–1854), the prohibition of mixed marriages in the California Civil Code was extended to include East Asians (at that time usually referred to as "Mongolians" ).
1882 The Chinese Exclusion Act , passed on May 6, 1882, was a federal law that prohibited Chinese workers from moving into the country. Chinese who had already entered the country before 1882 were allowed to stay in the country and continue to enter and leave the country if they could prove an American residence. The regulation was initially only to apply for 10 years, but was soon tightened and extended.

The Chinese Exclusion Act became explosive because the Chinese who entered the USA before 1882 could no longer allow their relatives who had remained in China to travel to the USA after the law came into force. This group of people consisted almost exclusively of young men, who were often married off by their families on short notice before leaving to ensure that the sons would return to their wives and children, who were not initially traveling, after establishing a living in the USA. Second, the law violated the Burlingame Treaty , an agreement ratified in 1868 by which the United States made China one of its preferred trading partners.

1883 In his judgment in the “Pace v. Alabama, ”on January 29, 1883, the Supreme Court declared the Alabama prohibition of mixed marriages and the prohibition of having sex with any member of any other race to be constitutional. The reason for this is that both parties would be punished equally and there would therefore be no discrimination.
1884 A new version ( Chinese Exclusion Act , 1884 Amendments) tightened the regulations of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1884 . Chinese living in the USA who wanted to re-enter the USA after traveling abroad now required papers that were issued by a federal agency and contained more personal information about their holder than the previously required travel documents. Second, the new papers were no longer a guarantee of re-entry, because the officials of the immigration authorities now had the right to question the authenticity of documents at their own discretion. Thirdly, the new version made it clear that all regulations of the Chinese Exclusion Act also apply to Chinese people who were born in the USA, i.e. who had the rank of American citizens.
1885 Until the 1880s, American entrepreneurs had often brought foreign - mainly Chinese - contract laborers into the country and advanced them with travel expenses that were later withheld from their wages ( credit ticket system ). With the Contract Labor Act (also Contract Labor Law ) passed on February 26, 1885 , this practice was banned. Exceptions were only allowed for highly qualified professionals and domestic workers.
1887 The General Allotment Act (better known as the Dawes Act ), which came into force on February 8, 1887, parceled out the reservation land of the American Indians , who often did not know what to do with the often unprofitable plots of land they had been assigned because they were also unfamiliar with the concept of private property .
1888 The Scott Act , signed on October 1, 1888, expanded entry restrictions for Chinese and also prohibited re-entry of Chinese-American migrants who were only temporarily leaving the United States.
1889 In the Chae Chan Ping v. In the United States , the US Supreme Court ruled on May 13, 1889 that the government was entitled to exclude an entire ethnic group from entering the United States.
1892 The Geary Act ( legal text ) passed in 1892 extended the validity of the Chinese Exclusion Act for another 10 years. The law, named after its author, California Congressman Thomas J. Geary, also tightened the provisions of the Chinese Exclusion Act . Chinese people living in the USA were now obliged to carry a document at all times that identified them as holders of a residence permit. Chinese people who violated this rule could be expelled or sentenced to one year of forced labor. The law also precluded Chinese from testifying in court or being released on bail in habeas corpus trials .
1896 In April 1896, the Supreme Court pronounced the Plessy v. Ferguson that the equality requirement of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution is also fulfilled by institutions separated according to race, as long as these are equivalent ("separate but equal").
1898 In the United States v. Wong Kim Art , the US Supreme Court ruled in 1898 that a person born in the United States had American citizenship by birth even if the parents were Chinese.
1900 In the United States v. In 1900 the US Supreme Court ruled Mrs. Cue Lim that the wives and children of foreign merchants ( treaty merchants ) were allowed to enter the USA.

20th century

1902 The validity of the Chinese Exclusion Act was extended indefinitely in 1902.
1904 On April 27, 1904, the Chinese Exclusion Extension Act was passed, with which the validity of the regulation of the Chinese Exclusion Act was extended to the entire US state including Washington, DC and all US territories . After all the previous regulations had been limited in time, the Chinese Exclusion Extension Act of 1904 no longer provided a time limit on the Chinese immigration ban.
1907 On March 2, 1907, a federal act ( Act of March 2, 1907 ) was passed that would forfeit American citizenship for any American woman who married a foreigner.

The law established what had long been common practice in the United States. From 1866 to 1907, however, no woman had to fear losing her citizenship as long as she did not leave the country; with the law of 1907 this changed fundamentally.

1909 The California ban on mixed marriages was extended to marriages between whites and Japanese in 1909.
1913 The Alien Land Law (also known as the Webb-Heney Bill ) passed in California in 1913 stipulated that people who were not American citizens were not allowed to acquire real estate in California. The law remained in force until 1948.
1921 With the Emergency Quota Act , which was passed as federal law on May 19, 1921, an immigrant quota arose in the USA for the first time, depending on the size of the respective national minority within the USA. The law stipulated that the number of immigrants entering from a particular country could only represent up to 3% of the compatriot already existing in the United States in 1890 annually. Highly qualified specialists were exempt from the regulation.

The background to the initiative was an increased influx of immigrants as a result of the First World War . Applicants from Eastern and Southern Europe were particularly affected by the new law.

1922 With the Cable Act ( Married Women's Act ) passed on September 22, 1922 , women were largely equated with men in terms of their naturalization rights. The law ended the case law that had been in use since 1907, according to which a woman born in the USA lost her American citizenship by marrying a foreigner.

In the “ Ozawa v. United States “the US Supreme Court confirmed on November 23, 1922 that the Japanese cannot acquire American citizenship.

1924 With the Immigration Act of 1924 , a federal law passed on May 26, 1924, which is also known as the National Origins Act or Johnson-Reed Act , the quota system for immigrants was tightened (see Emergency Quota Act ). The immigration rate has been reduced from 3% to 2%, and even further for southern and eastern Europeans. However, there were no admission restrictions for applicants from Latin America . East Asians and Indians were still not allowed to enter the country at all.

With the Indian Citizenship Act , which came into force on June 2, 1924 , the indigenous people of the USA received American citizenship for the first time.

1934 On June 18, 1934, the Indian Reorganization Act ( legal text ), also known as the Weeler-Howard Act , came into force, which repealed the General Allotment Act after the failure of the integration policy and instead of a continuation of the parceling policy strengthened the sovereignty of the tribes, which are now tribal governments and could make better use of the land allocated to them.
1942 On February 19, 1942 signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to Executive Order 9066 , which the American military commanders were instructed all living in the US Japanese in internment camps to spend.

The internment affected 112,000 to 120,000 people, 62% of whom were American citizens. The internees were expropriated and the majority received no compensation after their release.

1943 The Chinese Exclusion Repeal Act (better known as the Magnuson Act ) passed on December 17, 1943, allowed the immigration of Chinese for the first time since the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882) came into force . The law also made it possible for Asians to acquire American citizenship for the first time .

However, since the Immigration Act of 1924 and its quota regime remained in effect (until 1965), the number of Chinese people who were allowed entry was limited to 105 people per year.

1945 The War Brides Act , passed on December 28, 1945, allowed the wives, children and adopted children of members of the US armed forces who had married during their war missions abroad to enter the US without a visa.
1948 On July 26, 1948, US President Harry S. Truman ordered the abolition of racial segregation in the US armed forces with Executive Order 9981 .
1948 With his judgment in the “ Perez v. Davis ”, the California Supreme Court lifted the prohibition of mixed marriages in California on October 1, 1948. The California Supreme Court was the first American court to override the prohibition of mixed marriages.
1952 On June 11, 1952, against President Harry S. Truman's veto, the US Congress passed the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA, also known as the McCarran-Walter Act ), an immigration law that abolished race restrictions, but retained the quota system and beyond determined which ethnic groups should be particularly preferred when issuing entry visas .
1953 In 1953 House Concurrent Resolution 108 came into force, which initiated another phase of forced assimilation of the Indians . With the resolution the previous policy, which had wanted to secure more autonomy for the Indians, was abandoned; The aim of this " termination " was the dissolution of the tribes and the resettlement of the Indians in cities.
1954 In its landmark judgment in the Brown v. Board of Education announced its previous decision in the Plessy v. Ferguson and declared the racial segregation practiced in schools in individual states and the administrative district to be unconstitutional.
1964 The most significant American federal law on ethnic minority equality was the Civil Rights Act of 1964 , signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson on July 2, 1964 . The law prohibited any discrimination based on race, skin color, religion, gender or national origin in public institutions, in government and in the workplace.
1965 The Voting Rights Act , signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson on August 6, 1965, overruled the previous right to vote, according to which only citizens who had successfully passed a reading test were included in the electoral roll. In addition, after state and local authorities often refused to register poor and minority people on the electoral roll, the law made voter registration in certain areas of the US a federal responsibility.

On October 3, 1965, the Immigration Act of 1924 was repealed and replaced by the Immigration and Naturalization Services Act of 1965 , also known as the Hart-Celler Act or INS Act of 1965 . This law came about against the background of the American civil rights movement on an initiative of Emanuel Celler and Philip Hart. The existing immigration quotas were lifted and replaced by more liberal regulations. The new immigration law stipulated that the number of applicants from countries in the western hemisphere should be limited to 120,000 annually until 1968. From the Eastern Hemisphere, 170,000 applicants were allowed annually, but no more than 20,000 per country. When selecting applicants, the focus was for the first time on family reunification, ie children and spouses of American citizens and permanent residents (foreigners with permanent right of residence) were given preference.

1967 Virginia was the last American state to go to court on a mixed marriage case. On June 12, 1967, the US Supreme Court declared in its judgment in the trial “ Loving v. Virginia ”made the Racial Integrity Act of 1924, which had been in effect in Virginia until then, unconstitutional. At that time, mixed marriages were still in place in 16 states.
1968 The Civil Rights Act of 1968 was signed by US President Johnson in April 1968 and made illegal: the refusal to rent or sell an apartment or house to a person on the basis of race, color, religion or nationality; a different treatment of a person in the conditions of the rental or sale, the display of a rental or purchase object with reference to discrimination based on the criteria already mentioned as well as coercion, threat and intimidation or influence on the use of rental and purchase rights as well as measures against persons or organizations that support the use of these rights.
1975 With the Indian Self Determination Act passed in 1975 , the Indians regained the self-determination rights they had lost during the time of termination .
1978 The American Indian Religious Freedom Act , which came into force in 1978 , gave American Indians the right to practice their traditional beliefs again.

21st century

2010 With the Claims Resolution Act of 2010 , the Cobell v. Salazar , which was initiated in 1996 against the US Department of the Interior and the US Treasury Department by the Indian activist Elouise P. Cobell and in which more than 500,000 victims ultimately demanded $ 176 billion.

Overview of the individual states

Anti-mixed marriage laws until 1887

Country First law passed Abolition of the law Races forbidden to marry whites comment
Illinois 1829 1874 Indians
Iowa 1839 1851 African American
Kansas 1855 1859 African American The law was abolished before statehood was achieved
New Mexico 1857 1866 African American The law was abolished before statehood was achieved
Maine 1821 1883 African American, American Indian
Massachusetts 1705 1843 African American, American Indian
Michigan 1838 1883 African American
Ohio 1861 1887 African American
Pennsylvania 1725 1780 African American
Rhode Island 1798 1881 African American, American Indian
Washington 1855 1868 African American, American Indian The law was abolished before statehood was achieved

Anti-Mixed Marriage Acts 1948–1967

Country First law passed Abolition of the law Races forbidden to marry whites comment
Arizona 1865 1962 African Americans, Asians, Filipinos, Caribbean people, Indians
California 1850 1948 African Americans, Asians, Filipinos
Colorado 1864 1957 African American
Idaho 1864 1959 African Americans, Indians, Asians
Indiana 1818 1965 African American
Maryland 1692 1967 African American, Filipinos Maryland also banned marriages between non-whites among themselves (blacks and Filipinos)
Montana 1909 1953 African Americans, Asians
Nebraska 1855 1963 African Americans, Asians
Nevada 1861 1959 African Americans, Indians, Asians, Filipinos
North Dakota 1909 1955 African American
Oregon 1862 1951 African American, American Indian, Asian, Native Hawaiian
South Dakota 1909 1957 African Americans, Asians, Filipinos
Utah 1852 1963 African Americans, Asians, Filipinos
Wyoming 1913 1965 African Americans, Asians, Filipinos

Anti-mixed marriage laws until June 12, 1967

Country First law passed Races forbidden to marry whites comment
Alabama 1822 African American In the meantime abolished during the reconstruction
Arkansas 1838 African American In the meantime abolished during the reconstruction
Delaware 1721 African American
Florida 1832 African American In the meantime abolished during the reconstruction
Georgia 1750 All non-whites
Kentucky 1792 African American
Louisiana 1724 African American In the meantime abolished during the reconstruction
Mississippi 1822 African American In the meantime abolished during the reconstruction
Missouri 1835 African Americans, Asians
North Carolina 1715 African American, American Indian Interracial marriages were not prohibited with the exception of marriages between African Americans and members of the Croatan Indian tribe
Oklahoma 1897 African American The law was unique in that it prohibited African Americans from marrying members of any foreign race.
South carolina 1717 All non-whites In the meantime abolished during the reconstruction
Tennessee 1741 African American, American Indian
Texas 1837 All non-whites
Virginia 1691 All non-whites
West Virginia 1863 African American

See also

Web links

General: The Land of the "Free"? ( Memento of 8 February 2008 at the Internet Archive ) (Engl.)

Immigration laws

Laws Affecting Asians:

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ United States Constitution , Article 1, Section 9 ( Legal Text )
  2. ^ David M. Brownstone, The Chinese-American Heritage: New York, Oxford (Facts on File), 1988, ISBN 0-8160-1627-5 , pp. 62f
  3. ↑ The People Vs. Hall [1] ; Brownstone, p. 63
  4. ^ Text of the History Wall Timeline: Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, St. Louis, Missouri [2]
  5. ↑ Asian Pacific Americans and Immigration Law [3]
  6. ↑ Chinese Exclusion Extension Act [4]
  7. ↑ Alien Land Laws Archived Copy ( Memento of the original from January 1, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.santacruzpl.org
  8. ↑ see for example: Stevens v. United States , 146 F.2d 120 (1944)