Civil Rights Act of 1875

Civil Rights Act of 1875
Citations

Long title	An act to protect all citizens in their civil and legal rights.
Acronyms (colloquial)	CRA 1875
Nicknames	Enforcement Act, Force Act, and Sumner Civil Rights Bill
Enacted by	the 43rd United States Congress
Statutes at Large	18 Stat. 335-337
Legislative history
Introduced in the Senate as S. 1 by Sen. Charles Sumner (R-MA) on May 13, 1870 Committee consideration by Senate Judiciary Passed the House on February 4, 1875 (162–99) Passed the Senate on February 27, 1875 (38–26) Signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant on March 1, 1875
United States Supreme Court cases
Civil Rights Cases (1883)

The Civil Rights Act of 1875 (18 Stat. 335–337), sometimes called Enforcement Act or Force Act, was a United States federal law enacted during the Reconstruction Era to guarantee African Americans equal treatment in public accommodations, public transportation, and to prohibit exclusion from jury service. The bill was passed by the 43rd United States Congress and signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant on March 1, 1875. Several years later, the Supreme Court ruled in Civil Rights Cases (1883) that sections of the act were unconstitutional.

The drafting of the bill was performed early in 1870 by Senator Charles Sumner, a dominant Radical Republican in the Senate, with the assistance of John Mercer Langston, a prominent African American who established the law department at Howard University. The bill was proposed by Senator Sumner and co-sponsored by Representative Benjamin F. Butler, both Republicans from Massachusetts, in the 41st Congress of the United States in 1870. The act was eventually passed by the 43rd Congress in February 1875 and signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant on March 1, 1875.