 Native American Citizenship and Competency During the Allotment and Assimilationist Era |
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This teaching module explores how citizenship featured in Native American policy during the Allotment and Assimilation Era. It highlights the first formal naturalization process for individuals on a national scale. Focusing on competency commissions from 1915 to 1920, this unit guides students in analyzing how legal assessments of "competency" in the context of citizenship were shaped by race, gender, and settler values. Using primary documents— including applications, inspection reports, and naturalization rituals—this module examines how federal policies enforced whiteness and domestic norms as criteria for inclusion. The module also encourages discussion about the dual role of citizenship as both a tool of assimilation and a potential resource for Native resistance and legal agency.
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| Nebraska Abortion Statute (1929) |
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The Nebraska state statute regarding abortion reflects the diverse landscape of abortion law before Roe v. Wade.
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| Nebraska Vagrancy Law (1929) |
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Vagrancy acts passed by the Nebraska state legislature reflected race-neutral legal language that was used to target the poor, people of color, and women.
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 Notice to Republican Voters of the 9th Congressional District of Virginia |
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This broadside publicized information about new voting laws and poll taxes in Virginia.
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| Of Masters and Apprentices |
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Acts passed by the Virginia General Assembly reflected race-neutral language of the legal code after the Civil War. Application of these statutes resulted in entrenched Jim Crow segregation.
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| Oklahoma's Poor Rich Indians: An Orgy of Graft and Exploitation of the Five Civilized Tribes, Legalized Robbery |
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This excerpt from the introduction of Zitkala-Ša's groundbreaking report opened the scene on fraud facilitated by guardians, lawmakers, and county clerks at the expense of minors, heirs, and incompetents during early Oklahoma statehood, and focused on probate courts as a site of legal exploitation.
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| Omaha Grapples with its Ugly Past (Will Brown) |
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This article looks at the legacy of the lynching of Will Brown, featuring interviews with prominent, Black Omaha community members Preston Love and Ernie Chambers, as well as University of Nebraska-Omaha Urban studies professor, Barbara Hewins-Maroney.
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| Ozawa v. United States |
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The Supreme Court found in Ozawa v. United States that Japanese immigrants were not eligible for naturalization, based on a contested category of whiteness. The case considered the meaning of "free white persons" from the 1906 Naturalization Act and whether factors like assimilability should be considered. While the court determined in Ozawa that the words "white person" were meant to indicate a person of the "caucasian race," the decision in U.S. v. Thind just months later stated that the word "caucasian" was meant to refer to the "common understanding" of race and not a scientific one.
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| Pensionado Act |
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This act, passed in the aftermath of the Philippine–American War, established a scholarship program for Filipino people to receive an education in the U.S.
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| Plessy v. Ferguson |
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In Plessy v. Ferguson, the Supreme Court found that racial discrimination did not violate constitutional equal protection. This case established the principle of "separate but equal" which was overturned in 1965 by the decision in Brown v. Board of Education.
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| Remembering a dark past, renewing resolve for the future (Will Brown) |
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This article from the Omaha World Herald describes Omaha's official observance of the 100-year anniversary of the lynching of Will Brown. Omaha Mayor, Jean Stothert, spoke at the commemoration calling Will Brown's lynching one of the darkest days in our history.
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| Roberto Alvarez, et al. v. E. L. Owen, et al. |
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This case was the first successful school desegregation case in the United States, decided fifteen years before Brown v. Board of Education. When the school board in Lemon Grove, California, attempted to build a separate school for students of Mexican origin, the court ruled that the segregation violated state laws which considered people of Mexican descent to be white.
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| Scott Act |
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The Scott Act rejected the guarantee of free travel for Chinese people provided by the Angell Treaty of 1880. The act stated that Chinese laborers who left the U.S. would not be able to return.
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| Selective Service Act |
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This act authorized the U.S. government to raise a national army through compulsory enlistment via a draft. The military was segregated at the time of World War I, and Black soldiers were mostly relegated to labor roles.
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| Seminole Agreement |
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Excerpts from this congressional act ratified an agreement with the Seminole Nation concerning allotment, like enrollment and laws of descent. The second proviso established matrilineal descent of lands, money, and property for heirs.
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| Separate schools for white and colored |
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Acts passed by the Virginia General Assembly reflected race-neutral language of the legal code after the Civil War. Application of these statutes resulted in entrenched Jim Crow segregation.
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| Texas Poll Tax |
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This poll tax law in Texas was voted on in a referendum in the 1902 election as a proposed amendment to the state constitution.
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| The Five Civilized Tribes Act |
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Excerpts from this congressional act legislated the end of tribal enrollment in the Five Tribes, as well as the dissolution of their tribal government. However, section 28 extended tribal sovereignty for the Five Tribes for a truncated 30 days per year.
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 The Lynching of Will Brown |
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The day after the lynching of Will Brown, the Omaha Bee devoted the first two pages of its edition to the racial terror violence enacted by a mob of white Omahans. The articles on these pages provide different perspective of the race riot, from the crowds cheering at the destruction of government buildings, to the alleged assault victim's shock at the incident. The newspaper also featured a list of victims of the mob.
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| The Woman Suffrage Movement and Frederick Douglass |
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In this speech given on the 60th Anniversary of the Seneca Falls Convention, Black women's rights advocate Mary Church Terrell reflects on the role of Frederick Douglass in the women's suffrage movement.
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| Tydings–McDuffie Act |
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This act established the process for the independence of the Philippine Islands, then a U.S. territory, after a ten-year transition period. The act reclassified Filipinos them from U.S. nationals to aliens and limited the number of immigrants from the Philippines to 50 per year.
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| Undesirable Aliens Act |
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This act made unlawfully entering the U.S. a crime for the first time. Immigrants who did not cross the border through an official point of entry, where they had to pay a fee and submit to tests, could be charged with a misdemeanor crime, facing fines and up to a year's imprisonment. Returning to the U.S. after deportation was made a felony, punishable by $1,000 in fines and up to two years imprisonment. This law applied to all immigrants entering the U.S., but was intended to restrict immigration from Mexico.
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| United States v. Cartozian |
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In this case, the District Court of Oregon debated whether an Armenian immigrant was white enough to be naturalized. Just two years after the Supreme Court ruled that Ozawa, a Japanese man, and Thind, a South Asian man, were not white enough for naturalization, the Oregon court ruled that people from Asia Minor were close enough to European descent to be naturalized.
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| United States v. Sandoval |
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In this case, the Supreme Court ruled that the Pueblo people were Indians, repudiating the earlier United States v. Joseph decision which had held that they were not. The title to Pueblo lands was now seen as held by tribes instead of in fee simple, meaning that Congressional approval was needed in order to make land sales. This undermined the legitimacy of non-Indian land titles across New Mexico.
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| United States v. Thind |
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The Supreme Court found in U.S. v. Thind that Indian immigrants were not eligible for naturalization, based on a contested category of whiteness. Contradicting their 1922 ruling in Ozawa naming caucasian identity as a requirement for naturalization, as a South Asian immigrant, Thind was deemed ineligible for citizenship because, despite being racially caucasian, he did not appear white.
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