Today in history: 14th Amendment Passed

[Callalily]

14th Amendment Passed

July 28, 1868

On July 28, 1868, five years after Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation granted freedom to enslaved people in the Confederate states, the United States took another step toward racial equality with the passing of the 14th Amendment. Coming on the heels of the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery in the United States in 1865, this legislation granted citizenship and equal rights to anyone born or naturalized in the country, including formerly enslaved people.

The amendment was part of a radical Reconstruction period in the United States, when new state governments were being created in the aftermath of the Civil War. The 14th Amendment goes on to say that “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.” This constitutional amendment paved the way for various civil rights legislation in the decades to come, including the desegregation of schools in 1954, the legalization of interracial marriage in 1967, and the legalization of gay marriage in 2015. There is still, of course, a very long way to go, but the 14th Amendment remains a cornerstone legislation for social progress.