Did you know there was a Civil Rights Act of 1875?

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The Civil Rights Act of 1875 was a law that guaranteed equal access to public accommodations like inns, transportation, and theaters for all citizens, regardless of race.

On October 15, 1883, the Supreme Court struck down the Civil Rights Act of 1875 in an 8-1 decision known as the Civil Rights Cases.

https://calendar.eji.org/racial-injustice/oct/15

Writing for the majority less than 20 years after the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified, Justice Joseph Bradley questioned the necessity and appropriateness of laws aimed at protecting Black people from discrimination:

"When a man has emerged from slavery, and, by the aid of beneficent legislation, has shaken off the inseparable concomitants of that state, there must be some stage in the progress of his elevation when he takes the rank of a mere citizen and ceases to be the special favorite of the laws, and when his rights as a citizen or a man are to be protected in the ordinary modes by which other men's rights are protected."
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It would be more than 80 years before Congress tried again to outlaw discrimination by passing the Civil Rights Act of 1964.