When the Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade in 1973, it established a constitutional right to abortion, but it did not guarantee access to one. Within three years, Congress passed the Hyde Amendment, cutting off Medicaid funding for abortions. Anti-abortion…
Between 1910 and 1970, Black Americans lost approximately 9 million acres of farmland in the South — a staggering transfer of wealth driven not by market forces alone but by tax sales, predatory legal maneuvers, discriminatory USDA lending, and the…
Custody Action for Lesbian Mothers (CALM, Norman grantee 1976–1977, 1992–1993) was founded in 1974 in Philadelphia by Rosalie Davies, a lesbian rights activist who went to law school after fighting her own custody battle. CALM was the only organization in…
The Southwest Voter Registration Education Project (SVREP, Norman grantee 1975–1978, 1984–1985) was founded in 1974 in San Antonio, Texas under the motto Su Voto Es Su Voz: Your Vote Is Your Voice. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 largely bypassed…
In May 1973, New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller signed into law the harshest drug sentencing statutes in the country: mandatory minimums of 15 years to life for low-level drug offenses, with no judicial discretion and no exceptions. The Rockefeller Drug…
Across the South in the 1970s, a consistent and well-documented pattern had taken hold in cities and counties: local governments provided dramatically inferior public services — paved roads, streetlights, sewage systems, garbage collection — to Black neighborhoods compared to white…
The Scholarship, Education and Defense Fund for Racial Equality (SEDFRE, Norman grantee 1966–1976) was founded in 1963 to provide legal defense, scholarships, and voter registration support to the Civil Rights Movement. By the early 1970s, the movement’s hard-won legislative victories…