On July 9, 1868, the 14th Amendment was ratified to the U.S. Constitution, granting U.S. citizenship to Black Americans after hundreds of years of enslavement. The crucial amendment would later serve ...

Every American citizen owes a debt of gratitude to John Mercer Langston, architect of the 14th Amendment and founding dean of the Howard University School of Law. His writings and speeches are ...

Following the Civil War and between 1865 and 1870, Congress passed Reconstruction Amendments (13, 14 and 15) to establish a new order or reconstruct laws to provide for equal freedoms and rights for ...

They’re told repeatedly that the practice is enshrined in the Constitution’s 14th amendment, that it has been affirmed by the Supreme Court, that the jurisprudence around it is settled law and that ...

Sen. Lyman Trumbull of Illinois, a key architect of the amendment, explained that “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” meant “not owing allegiance to anybody else.” In contrast to the authors of the ...

I used to accept "birthright citizenship," too. Then I read the Supreme Court cases purportedly saying the 14th Amendment automatically makes a child born in the United States an American citizen.

“In some ways, the 14th Amendment is the original articulation that Black lives matter,” says Damon Hewitt, president and executive director of Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law. On ...