March 1, 1875: The Civil Rights Act of 1875
Sometimes called the Enforcement Act or the Force Act, it was a United States federal law enacted during the Reconstruction era in response to civil rights violations against African Americans. The act was designed to "protect all citizens in their civil and legal rights," providing for equal treatment in public accommodations and public transportation and prohibiting exclusion from jury service.
It was originally drafted in 1870, by Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, who had been one of the leading abolitionists before the American Civil War. However, Sumner died on March 11, 1874, about a year before the Act was passed.
The law was not effectively enforced, partly because Grant had favored different measures to help him suppress election-related violence against blacks and Republicans in the Southern United States. In 1883, in the case of U.S. v. Stanley, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was unconstitutional, because the 14th Amendment to the Constitution already covered some of its provisions, and that the States had the right to get around some of it.
There would not be another Civil Rights Act passed in America until 1957.
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March 1, 1875 was a Monday. Since it was too soon for baseball, the off-season for what Americans were then calling "football," and over 16 years before the invention of basketball, there were no scores on this historic day.
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