by Serena Lathi

What are they?

The fourteenth amendment guaranteed citizenship to everyone born or naturalized in the United States. It also guaranteed all citizens equal protection of the law. This amendment was one of the three passed during the Recontruction Era (after the Civil War) to abolish slavery and create civil rights. The nineteenth amendment, which was passed in 1920, granted women in the US the right to vote. The movement, started in 1848, became national when the demand for women’s suffrage grew and when the Seneca Falls Convention was organized.These two amendments were necessary for equal rights

The significance

In 1896, the Plessy v Ferguson court case concluded that segregated public facilities were not violating the equal protection clause in the 14th amendment. This was an extremely significant case because it helped establish the Jim Crow laws, which were ruthless toward African Americans. During the 1920s thought, the Supreme Court started using the protection clause for state and local level, protecting the First Amendment rights. Another extremely famous case, Brown v Board of Education, revoked the ‘separate but equal’ clause established by Plessy, concluding that separate facilities were violating the protection clause. This was a landmark case because it was the start to equal protection for African Americans. Without the obstacles from the Jim Crow Laws, like literacy tests and poll taxes, they had more opportunities to vote. 

The significance of the nineteenth amendments is pretty self-explanatory– after years of protesting, women had the right to vote. The whole ideal of Republican Motherhood said that women were only needed at home to raise good children and did not need to be involved in politics. Obviously this whole concept did not just disappear after the amendment was ratified, but it was a huge landmark for women’s equality because they had the chance to be involved in choosing who they wanted to lead their country. 

https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/fourteenth-amendment#section_6