Reports

Emancipation Proclamation

1863 • Executive Order • Republican Party

Unknown era • Unknown president

Total Score: 40

13th Amendment

1865 • Amendment • Republican Party

Unknown era • Unknown president

Total Score: 40

Civil Rights Act of 1866

1866 • Law • Republican Party

Unknown era • Unknown president

Total Score: 39

14th Amendment

1868 • Amendment • Republican Party

Unknown era • Unknown president

Total Score: 39

Brown v. Board of Education

1954 • Court Case • Unknown party

Unknown era • Unknown president

Total Score: 39

Civil Rights Act of 1964

1964 • Law • Democratic Party

Unknown era • Unknown president

Total Score: 39

Social Security Amendments of 1965

1965 • Law • Democratic Party

Unknown era • Unknown president

Total Score: 39

South Carolina v. Katzenbach

1966 • Court Case • Unknown party

Unknown era • Unknown president

Total Score: 39

Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871

1871 • Law • Republican Party

Unknown era • Unknown president

Total Score: 38

Voting Rights Act of 1965

1965 • Law • Democratic Party

Unknown era • Unknown president

Total Score: 38

Slaughter-House Cases

1873 • Court Case • Unknown party

Civil War and Reconstruction • Unknown president

The Supreme Court narrowly interpreted the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, sharply limiting its usefulness as a federal protection against state-level rights violations.

Impact Direction: Negative

Notes: The decision did not abolish the Fourteenth Amendment, but it drastically reduced one of its most expansive clauses and contributed to later retrenchment in Black civil-rights protection.

Civil Rights Act of 1875

1875 • Law • Republican Party

Civil War and Reconstruction • Ulysses S. Grant

Attempted to guarantee equal treatment in public accommodations and jury service regardless of race.

Impact Direction: Mixed

Notes: Ambitious law whose core public-accommodations protections were later struck down.

United States v. Cruikshank

1876 • Court Case • Unknown party

Civil War and Reconstruction • Unknown president

The Supreme Court overturned federal convictions tied to the Colfax Massacre and sharply limited federal power to protect Black citizens from private racial violence and state-level rights violations.

Impact Direction: Negative

Notes: One of the most damaging Reconstruction decisions because it narrowed federal civil-rights enforcement after one of the era's deadliest massacres of Black citizens.

Civil Rights Cases (1883)

1883 • Court Case • Unknown party

Jim Crow and Disenfranchisement • Unknown president

The Supreme Court struck down the Civil Rights Act of 1875, ruling that Congress could not prohibit racial discrimination by private individuals or businesses.

Impact Direction: Negative

Notes: Undercut Reconstruction civil-rights protections and narrowed federal enforcement power.

Plessy v. Ferguson

1896 • Court Case • Unknown party

Jim Crow and Disenfranchisement • Unknown president

The Supreme Court upheld racial segregation under the separate but equal doctrine.

Impact Direction: Negative

Notes: One of the central legal pillars of Jim Crow segregation.

Williams v. Mississippi

1898 • Court Case • Unknown party

Jim Crow and Disenfranchisement • Unknown president

The Supreme Court upheld Mississippi's poll tax, literacy test, and related voter qualification scheme because the law did not explicitly name race on its face, even though it was designed and administered to disfranchise Black voters.

Impact Direction: Negative

Notes: A foundational anti-voting-rights precedent because it gave constitutional cover to state schemes designed to strip Black citizens of the franchise.

George White Anti-Lynching Bill (H.R. 6963)

1900 • Law • Republican Party

Jim Crow and Disenfranchisement • William McKinley

Representative George Henry White introduced the first federal anti-lynching bill to protect citizens against mob violence, but the measure never made it out of committee.

Impact Direction: Blocked

Notes: Historically significant as the first federal anti-lynching effort, and significant precisely because Congress failed to act when mob violence against Black Americans was already entrenched.

Giles v. Harris

1903 • Court Case • Unknown party

Jim Crow and Disenfranchisement • Unknown president

The Supreme Court refused to grant meaningful relief to Black plaintiffs challenging Alabama's disfranchising constitution, effectively declining to use federal judicial power to restore their voting rights.

Impact Direction: Negative

Notes: Deepened the practical collapse of Reconstruction voting protections by leaving a major disfranchising regime in place.

Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill

1922 • Law • Republican Party

Jim Crow and Disenfranchisement • Warren G. Harding

A federal anti-lynching bill passed the House but was blocked in the Senate after fierce opposition.

Impact Direction: Blocked

Notes: A major missed opportunity for federal protection against racial violence.

Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC)

1933 • Program • Democratic Party

Jim Crow and Disenfranchisement • Franklin D. Roosevelt

Created to refinance home mortgages during the Great Depression and produced residential security maps that contributed to redlining practices.

Impact Direction: Negative

Notes: HOLC maps influenced decades of redlining and disinvestment in Black neighborhoods.

Costigan-Wagner Anti-Lynching Bill

1934 • Law • Democratic Party

Jim Crow and Disenfranchisement • Franklin D. Roosevelt

A later federal anti-lynching bill was introduced but failed to become law after strong Senate resistance.

Impact Direction: Blocked

Notes: Another major failed anti-lynching effort.

National Housing Act of 1934 (FHA Creation)

1934 • Law • Democratic Party

Jim Crow and Disenfranchisement • Franklin D. Roosevelt

Established the Federal Housing Administration to insure mortgages and expand homeownership.

Impact Direction: Negative

Notes: Key driver of the racial wealth gap through housing access.

Grovey v. Townsend

1935 • Court Case • Unknown party

Jim Crow and Disenfranchisement • Unknown president

The Supreme Court upheld the exclusion of Black voters from a Texas Democratic primary by treating the party's action as private rather than state action.

Impact Direction: Negative

Notes: A harmful Jim Crow precedent because it allowed white primaries to persist through formal distinctions between party and state action.

National Labor Relations Act

1935 • Law • Democratic Party

Jim Crow and Disenfranchisement • Franklin D. Roosevelt

Established workers’ rights to unionize and bargain collectively.

Impact Direction: Mixed

Notes: Important labor law with racial exclusions in practice.

Social Security Act of 1935

1935 • Law • Democratic Party

Jim Crow and Disenfranchisement • Franklin D. Roosevelt

Created federal old-age insurance, unemployment insurance, and public assistance programs, but initially excluded many occupations in which Black workers were concentrated, including large portions of agricultural and domestic labor.

Impact Direction: Mixed

Notes: Historically transformative overall, but structured in ways that disproportionately excluded Black workers at the time of enactment.

Gavagan Anti-Lynching Bill (H.R. 1507)

1937 • Law • Democratic Party

Jim Crow and Disenfranchisement • Franklin D. Roosevelt

The House passed Representative Joseph Gavagan's anti-lynching bill in 1937, but Senate filibusters and failed cloture efforts prevented it from becoming law.

Impact Direction: Blocked

Notes: A major failed anti-lynching measure whose defeat underscored the power of southern obstruction against Black civil-rights protection.

United States Housing Act of 1937

1937 • Law • Democratic Party

Jim Crow and Disenfranchisement • Franklin D. Roosevelt

Created the United States Housing Authority and provided federal support for low-income housing and slum clearance, but administration through local authorities often reproduced segregation and unequal access.

Impact Direction: Mixed

Notes: A major housing intervention that could provide relief, yet often reinforced segregation and unequal administration at the local level.

Fair Labor Standards Act

1938 • Law • Democratic Party

Jim Crow and Disenfranchisement • Franklin D. Roosevelt

Established minimum wage, overtime pay, and child labor protections.

Impact Direction: Mixed

Notes: Foundational labor law with exclusionary impact.

G.I. Bill (Servicemen's Readjustment Act)

1944 • Law • Democratic Party

Civil Rights Era • Franklin D. Roosevelt

Provided education and housing benefits to returning veterans.

Impact Direction: Mixed

Notes: Major wealth-building program with unequal access.

Hospital Survey and Construction Act

1946 • Law • Democratic Party

Civil Rights Era • Harry S. Truman

Authorized federal grants and loans for hospital construction and modernization through state plans, greatly expanding hospital infrastructure while permitting segregated implementation in many parts of the country.

Impact Direction: Mixed

Notes: A major public-health investment whose benefits were filtered through state and local systems that frequently upheld segregation.

Housing Act of 1949

1949 • Law • Democratic Party

Civil Rights Era • Harry S. Truman

Funded urban redevelopment and public housing expansion.

Impact Direction: Mixed

Notes: Urban renewal often destroyed Black neighborhoods.

Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956

1956 • Law • Republican Party

Civil Rights Era • Dwight D. Eisenhower

Launched the modern interstate highway system and accelerated massive federally backed road construction through cities and metropolitan regions across the United States.

Impact Direction: Negative

Notes: One of the clearest federal infrastructure examples of racialized urban displacement through route selection and redevelopment logic.

Civil Rights Act of 1957

1957 • Law • Republican Party

Civil Rights Era • Dwight D. Eisenhower

Created the Civil Rights Division in the Justice Department and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, with limited voting-rights enforcement provisions.

Impact Direction: Mixed

Notes: Important symbolic and institutional step, but limited practical reach.

Civil Rights Act of 1960

1960 • Law • Republican Party

Civil Rights Era • Dwight D. Eisenhower

Strengthened federal inspection of voter registration records and penalties for obstructing court orders involving school desegregation.

Impact Direction: Mixed

Notes: Useful but still limited compared with later legislation.

Veterans' Readjustment Benefits Act of 1966

1966 • Law • Democratic Party

Civil Rights Era • Lyndon B. Johnson

Extended education, training, loan, and readjustment benefits to a new generation of veterans, including many who served during the Vietnam era.

Impact Direction: Mixed

Notes: Important expansion of veteran benefits whose practical returns remained constrained by broader racial inequality.

Uniform Relocation Assistance and Real Property Acquisition Policies Act of 1970

1970 • Law • Republican Party

Civil Rights Era • Richard Nixon

Established federal standards for relocation payments and assistance for people displaced by federal and federally assisted projects, including displaced homeowners, tenants, businesses, and farms.

Impact Direction: Mixed

Notes: Important because it recognized displacement harms and set a floor for compensation and assistance, while still operating inside a system that continued to clear and remake urban communities.

Housing and Community Development Act of 1974

1974 • Law • Republican Party

Civil Rights Era • Gerald R. Ford

Created the Community Development Block Grant program and the Section 8 housing assistance framework while restructuring federal urban-development policy.

Impact Direction: Mixed

Notes: A major housing law because it combined meaningful anti-poverty and housing support tools with decentralized implementation that did not reliably overcome segregation or local exclusion.

Milliken v. Bradley

1974 • Court Case • Unknown party

Post Civil Rights Era • Richard Nixon

The Supreme Court limited interdistrict desegregation remedies by ruling that suburban districts could not be included in a metropolitan desegregation plan absent proof that they had contributed to the constitutional violation.

Impact Direction: Negative

Notes: Commonly viewed as a major limitation on school desegregation remedies.

Regents of the University of California v. Bakke

1978 • Court Case • Unknown party

Post Civil Rights Era • Unknown president

The Supreme Court struck down a rigid admissions quota while also allowing race to be considered as one factor among many in higher education admissions.

Impact Direction: Mixed

Notes: Historically influential but internally mixed in effect and later narrowed by subsequent case law.

Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986

1986 • Law • Republican Party

Contemporary Era • Ronald Reagan

Federal anti-drug law that established harsh mandatory minimum sentences, including the 100-to-1 crack versus powder cocaine sentencing disparity.

Impact Direction: Negative

Notes: A major driver of sentencing disparities tied to the War on Drugs.

McCleskey v. Kemp

1987 • Court Case • Unknown party

Post Civil Rights Era • Ronald Reagan

The Supreme Court rejected an equal-protection and Eighth Amendment challenge to Georgia's death penalty despite statistical evidence of racial disparities, requiring proof of intentional discrimination in the individual case.

Impact Direction: Negative

Notes: Widely regarded as a major barrier to race-disparity challenges in criminal justice.

Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988

1988 • Law • Republican Party

Contemporary Era • Ronald Reagan

Expanded the federal drug war framework, created the Office of National Drug Control Policy, and intensified criminal penalties tied to drug enforcement.

Impact Direction: Negative

Notes: Extended the punitive direction of 1980s federal drug policy.

Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act

1989 • Law • Democratic Party

Contemporary Era • George H. W. Bush

Would have established a federal commission to examine slavery, post-emancipation discrimination, and the continuing effects of those systems, and to recommend remedies including apology and compensation.

Impact Direction: Blocked

Notes: A major blocked reform because it marked the modern legislative starting point for federal reparations proposals and still could not clear Congress.

Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act

1994 • Law • Democratic Party

Post Civil Rights Era • Bill Clinton

Expanded policing, prisons, and sentencing laws across the United States.

Impact Direction: Negative

Notes: Major expansion of incarceration policy.

Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994

1994 • Law • Democratic Party

Contemporary Era • Bill Clinton

Large federal crime law that expanded policing, prisons, and sentencing measures while also including provisions like the Violence Against Women Act.

Impact Direction: Mixed

Notes: Included both harmful punitive expansion and some provisions viewed as beneficial, making it best classified as mixed.

Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act

1996 • Law • Democratic Party

Contemporary Era • Bill Clinton

Overhauled welfare programs and imposed work requirements and time limits on benefits.

Impact Direction: Mixed

Notes: Major shift in social safety net structure.

Prison Litigation Reform Act

1996 • Law • Democratic Party

Contemporary Era • Bill Clinton

Restricted the ability of prisoners to file lawsuits regarding prison conditions.

Impact Direction: Negative

Notes: Reduced oversight of prison conditions.

Pigford v. Glickman

1999 • Court Case • Unknown party

Contemporary Era • Bill Clinton

Black farmers sued the U.S. Department of Agriculture over decades of racial discrimination in farm credit and benefit programs and the government's failure to process civil-rights complaints fairly.

Impact Direction: Mixed

Notes: Historically important because it formally validated long-standing USDA discrimination while offering only partial redress relative to the scale of the harm.

Black Farmer Fairness Act of 2001

2001 • Law • Republican Party

Contemporary Era • George W. Bush

Would have protected Pigford settlement recipients from tax liability and the loss of means-tested federal benefits triggered by settlement payments arising from USDA discrimination claims.

Impact Direction: Blocked

Notes: Important because it showed how partial remedies could still leave Black farmers exposed to secondary losses and administrative unfairness.

No Child Left Behind Act

2002 • Law • Republican Party

Contemporary Era • George W. Bush

Expanded federal oversight of education and standardized testing requirements.

Impact Direction: Mixed

Notes: Major federal intervention in education policy.

Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1

2007 • Court Case • Unknown party

Post Civil Rights Era • George W. Bush

The Supreme Court struck down certain voluntary K-12 student assignment plans that used individual racial classifications to promote school integration.

Impact Direction: Negative

Notes: Generally viewed as constraining voluntary integration efforts in K-12 schools.

Shelby County v. Holder

2013 • Court Case • Unknown party

Contemporary Era • Barack Obama

Supreme Court decision that invalidated the coverage formula used for federal preclearance under the Voting Rights Act.

Impact Direction: Negative

Notes: A major rollback of Voting Rights Act enforcement.

Every Student Succeeds Act

2015 • Law • Democratic Party

Contemporary Era • Barack Obama

Replaced No Child Left Behind and returned more control to states.

Impact Direction: Mixed

Notes: Shifted control back to states.

Emmett Till Antilynching Act

2020 • Law • Democratic Party

Contemporary Era • Donald J. Trump

Would have established a specific federal criminal civil-rights violation for lynching, reviving a reform Congress had failed to enact for more than a century.

Impact Direction: Blocked

Notes: Important because even a narrowly framed anti-lynching measure still failed to become law at that stage, despite overwhelming historical evidence of federal inaction.

HUD Termination of the 2015 AFFH Rule

2020 • Agency Action • Republican Party

Contemporary Era • Donald J. Trump

HUD terminated the 2015 Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing regulation, ending the structured Assessment of Fair Housing framework that had required localities and housing agencies to use data and planning tools tied to segregation and opportunity gaps.

Impact Direction: Negative

Notes: A significant rollback because it removed a concrete federal planning and accountability structure tied to fair-housing enforcement.

Justice in Policing Act of 2020

2020 • Law • Democratic Party

Contemporary Era • Donald J. Trump

Would have imposed federal policing standards and expanded accountability measures on issues including use of force, chokeholds, no-knock warrants, data collection, and officer misconduct.

Impact Direction: Blocked

Notes: A major failed accountability package that prefigured the later George Floyd Justice in Policing Act and reflected how difficult it remained to pass federal policing reform.

American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 Section 1005 Debt Relief for Socially Disadvantaged Farmers

2021 • Law • Democratic Party

Contemporary Era • Joseph R. Biden Jr.

Appropriated funding for USDA to pay certain outstanding direct and guaranteed farm loan balances for socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers as a response to the cumulative effects of discriminatory lending and program administration.

Impact Direction: Mixed

Notes: Important because it moved beyond study and litigation toward direct debt relief, but its implementation was substantially blocked before the original remedy could be delivered.

Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee

2021 • Court Case • Unknown party

Contemporary Era • Joseph R. Biden Jr.

The Supreme Court upheld Arizona voting restrictions and adopted a narrower interpretation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

Impact Direction: Negative

Notes: A modern voting-rights rollback that narrowed practical Section 2 protections.

Ending Qualified Immunity Act

2021 • Law • Democratic Party

Contemporary Era • Joseph R. Biden Jr.

Would have eliminated the qualified immunity defense in civil rights actions, making it easier to hold state actors personally liable for constitutional violations.

Impact Direction: Blocked

Notes: Important not because it passed, but because its failure left intact one of the legal doctrines most criticized for impeding accountability in cases of police and state violence affecting Black communities.

Freedom to Vote Act

2021 • Law • Democratic Party

Contemporary Era • Joseph R. Biden Jr.

A proposed federal voting-rights and election-administration bill designed to expand ballot access, limit partisan gerrymandering, and strengthen election protections.

Impact Direction: Blocked

Notes: A major modern voting-rights proposal that stalled.

George Floyd Justice in Policing Act

2021 • Law • Democratic Party

Contemporary Era • Joseph R. Biden Jr.

Proposed legislation to reform policing practices, accountability standards, and use-of-force rules.

Impact Direction: Blocked

Notes: High-profile policing reform proposal that stalled.

John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act

2021 • Law • Democratic Party

Contemporary Era • Joseph R. Biden Jr.

Proposed legislation to restore and modernize Voting Rights Act preclearance protections after Shelby County v. Holder.

Impact Direction: Blocked

Notes: Important modern voting-rights proposal that stalled.

John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2021

2021 • Law • Democratic Party

Contemporary Era • Joseph R. Biden Jr.

Would have restored and modernized key Voting Rights Act preclearance and anti-discrimination protections weakened by Shelby County v. Holder and subsequent voting-rights litigation.

Impact Direction: Blocked

Notes: A central blocked voting-rights reform because it was designed specifically to rebuild federal protections after major Supreme Court retrenchment.

CROWN Act of 2022

2022 • Law • Democratic Party

Contemporary Era • Joseph R. Biden Jr.

Would have prohibited discrimination based on hair texture or hairstyles commonly associated with race across employment, housing, public accommodations, and federally assisted programs.

Impact Direction: Blocked

Notes: Its failure mattered because it targeted a well-documented form of race discrimination that often falls on Black students, workers, and tenants.

Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act

2023 • Law • Democratic Party

Contemporary Era • Joseph R. Biden Jr.

Would establish a federal commission to study slavery, subsequent racial discrimination, and the continuing effects of those systems, and to recommend remedies including reparative measures.

Impact Direction: Blocked

Notes: A high-visibility blocked reform because it sought only a study commission, yet even that limited federal reckoning with slavery and its afterlives did not advance.

Justice for Black Farmers Act of 2023

2023 • Law • Democratic Party

Contemporary Era • Joseph R. Biden Jr.

Would have addressed USDA discrimination against Black farmers through debt relief, land-retention and land-grant support, civil-rights reforms, and equity-focused agricultural investment.

Impact Direction: Blocked

Notes: A major blocked reparative and anti-discrimination agriculture measure because it named the problem directly and proposed institutional remedies that Congress did not advance.

Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and UNC

2023 • Court Case • Unknown party

Contemporary Era • Joseph R. Biden Jr.

The Supreme Court held that the race-conscious admissions programs challenged at Harvard and the University of North Carolina violated constitutional and statutory equal-protection rules, sharply restricting affirmative action in higher education.

Impact Direction: Negative

Notes: Major contemporary rollback of affirmative-action doctrine in higher education.