Vocabulary List 5:

Question 1

Define: Policies designed to protect people against arbitrary or discriminatory
treatment by government officials or individuals.

Answer 1

civil rights

Question 2

Define: The constitutional amendment adopted after the Civil War that states, “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or
property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the
laws.”

Answer 2

Fourteenth Amendment

Question 3

Define: Part of the Fourteenth Amendment emphasizing that the laws must provide equivalent “protection” to all people.

Answer 3

equal protection of the laws

Question 4

Define: The constitutional amendment ratified after the Civil War that forbade slavery and involuntary servitude.

Answer 4

Thirteenth Amendment

Question 5

Define: The law making racial discrimination in hotels, motels, and restaurants illegal and forbidding many forms of
job discrimination.

Answer 5

Civil Rights Act of 1964

Question 6

Define: The legal right to vote, extended to African Americans by the
Fifteenth Amendment, to women by the Nineteenth Amendment, and to 18- to 20-year-olds by the Twenty-sixth Amendment.

Answer 6

suffrage

Question 7

Define: The constitutional amendment adopted in 1870 to extend suffrage to
African Americans.

Answer 7

Fifteenth Amendment

Question 8

Define: Small taxes levied on the right to vote.

Answer 8

poll taxes

Question 9

Define: Primary elections from which African Americans were excluded, an exclusion that, in the heavily Democratic
South, deprived African Americans of a voice in the real contests.

Answer 9

white primary

Question 10

Define: The constitutional amendment passed in 1964 that declared poll taxes void
in federal elections.

Answer 10

Twenty-fourth Amendment

Question 11

Define: A law designed to help end formal and informal barriers to African American
suffrage. Under the law, hundreds of thousands of African Americans were registered, and the number of African American elected officials increased dramatically.

Answer 11

Voting Rights Act of 1965

Question 12

Define: The constitutional amendment adopted in 1920 that guarantees women the right to vote.

Answer 12

Nineteenth Amendment

Question 13

Define: A constitutional amendment originally introduced in Congress in 1923 and passed by Congress in 1972, stating that “equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.”

Answer 13

Equal Rights Amendment

Question 14

Define: A law passed in 1990 that requires employers and public facilities to make “reasonable accommodations” for people with disabilities and prohibits discrimination against these individuals in employment.

Answer 14

Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990

Question 15

Define: A policy designed to give special attention to or compensatory treatment for members of some previously disadvantaged group.

Answer 15

affirmative action