Fourteenth Amendment

On July 28, 1868, the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified. Among other things, the amendment was meant to provide the protections of citizenship to the roughly four million formerly enslaved people of the South as well as free Blacks in the North and “all persons born or naturalized in the United States.” The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth amendments, passed between 1865 and 1870, have been described by historians and political scientists as revolutionary in their intent, providing the Constitution an emphasis on equality that it was previously lacking. Unfortunately, the revolutionary nature of these amendments has been ignored or repressed by state and national legislatures as well as various Supreme Court decisions since the late nineteenth century, being interpreted to justify segregation or to provide protections to corporations. What will it take for all Americans to be allowed to exercise their rights to life, liberty, and property under the equal protection of law?