Episode 652 (4-3-23): The 14th Amendment and Water-related Civil Rights Claims – Part 1: Introduction to the 14th Amendment (Episode Five of the Series, “Exploring Water in U.S. Civil Rights History”)

CLICK HERE to listen to episode audio (5:06).

Sections below are the following:
Transcript of Audio
Audio Notes and Acknowledgments
Images
Extra Information
Sources

Related Water Radio Episodes
For Virginia Teachers (Relevant SOLs, etc.).

Unless otherwise noted, all Web addresses mentioned were functional as of 3-31-23.

TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO

From the Cumberland Gap to the Atlantic Ocean, this is
Virginia Water Radio for the weeks of April 3 and April 10, 2023.  This episode, the fifth in a series on water
in U.S. civil rights history, begins an exploration of water connections to the
14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

MUSIC – ~17 sec – instrumental.

That’s part of “Maple Leaf Rag,” composed by Scott Joplin
and performed by Zachary Brewster-Geisz. 
 Scott Joplin, an African American
from Texas who became known as the king of ragtime music, was born in 1868.  That year also brought the effective “birth”
of the the 14th Amendment, which was ratified in July 1868.  Have a listen to the music for about 20 more
seconds, and see if you know four areas of rights addressed by the amendment.

MUSIC – ~22 sec – instrumental.

If you guessed any of these, you’re right: citizenship,
privileges and immunities, due process, and equal protection.  Let’s have a listen to the Section 1 of the
amendment: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject
to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state
wherein they reside.  No state shall make
or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens
of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty,
or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its
jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

Other sections of the amendment addressed citizens’ right to
vote, insurrection against the United States, Civil War debts and compensation,
and finally—of great importance to future civil rights
legislation—Congressional authority to enforce the amendment.

The late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, in a
1987 speech, said the following about the 14th Amendment: quote, “While
the Union survived the civil war, the Constitution did not.  In its place arose a new, more promising
basis for justice and equality, the 14th Amendment, ensuring protection of the
life, liberty, and property of all persons against deprivations without due
process, and guaranteeing equal protection of the laws,” unquote.

There may be no more important development in U.S. civil rights
history—certainly in its legal history—than passage and ratification of the 14th
Amendment.  Interestingly from a water
perspective, the first U.S. Supreme Court interpretation of the amendment, in
1873, addressed a law focused on water and public health; about 100 years
later, water infrastructure was at issue in another significant federal court
claim under the amendment; and water infrastructure is the subject of a 2022
complaint filed under the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964, for which the amendment
is a significant constitutional foundation. 
This episode’s overview sets the stage for upcoming episodes on those
three 14th Amendment water stories.

Thanks to Zachary Brewster-Geisz for making a recording of
“Maple Leaf Rag” available for public use, and we close with about 20 more
seconds of that well-known Scott Joplin tune.

MUSIC – ~22 sec – instrumental.

SHIP’S BELL

Virginia Water Radio is produced by the Virginia Water
Resources Research Center, part of Virginia Tech’s College of Natural Resources
and Environment.  For more Virginia water
sounds, music, or information, visit us online at virginiawaterradio.org, or call
the Water Center at (540) 231-5624.  Thanks
to Stewart Scales for his banjo version of “Cripple Creek” to open and close
this episode.  In Blacksburg, I’m Alan
Raflo, thanking you for listening,
and wishing you health, wisdom, and good water.

AUDIO NOTES AND
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

“Maple Leaf Rag,” composed by Scott Joplin, was first
published in 1899.  The recording heard
in this Virginia Water Radio episode was by Zachary Brewster-Geisz, June 2006,
made available on Free Music Archive, online at https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Scott_Joplin/Frog_Legs_Ragtime_Era_Favorites/03_-_scott_joplin_-_maple_leaf_rag/,
as of 4-3-23, for use under Creative Commons Mark 1.0 License – Public Domain;
more information on that Creative Commons License is available online at https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/.

Click
here if you’d like to hear the full version (1 min./11 sec.) of the
“Cripple Creek” arrangement/performance by Stewart Scales that opens and closes
this episode.  More
information about Mr. Scales and the group New Standard, with which Mr.
Scales plays, is available online at http://newstandardbluegrass.com.

IMAGES

Photographs of the June 1866 joint resolution in Congress
proposing the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.  Images taken from the National Archives,
online at https://www.docsteach.org/documents/document/fourteenth-amendment,
as of 4/3/23.  The images are made
available for use under the Creative Commons license
“Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International”; more information
about that Creative Commons license is available online at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/.

EXTRA INFORMATION ON
THE 14TH AMENDMENT

The following information about, and text of, the 14th
Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was taken from National Archives, “Milestone
Documents: 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Civil Rights (1868),”
online at https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/14th-amendment.

“Following the Civil War, Congress submitted to the states
three amendments as part of its Reconstruction program to guarantee equal civil
and legal rights to Black citizens.  A
major provision of the 14th Amendment was to grant citizenship to ‘All persons
born or naturalized in the United States,’ thereby granting citizenship to
formerly enslaved people.

“Another equally important provision was the statement that ‘nor
shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due
process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws.’  The right to
due process of law and equal protection of the law now applied to both the
federal and state governments.

“On June 16, 1866, the House Joint Resolution proposing the
14th Amendment to the Constitution was submitted to the states.  On July 28, 1868, the 14th amendment was
declared, in a certificate of the Secretary of State, ratified by the necessary
28 of the 37 States, and became part of the supreme law of the land.”

Text of 14th
Amendment

Section 1.

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and
subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of
the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which
shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States;
nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without
due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws.

Section 2.

Representatives shall be apportioned among the several
states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of
persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote
at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of
the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial
officers of a state, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to
any of the male
inhabitants of such state, being twenty-one
years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged,
except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of
representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of
such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one
years of age in such state.

Section 3.

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress,
or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or
military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously
taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States,
or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer
of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have
engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort
to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House,
remove such disability.

Section 4.

The validity of the public debt of the United States,
authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and
bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be
questioned. But neither the United States nor any state shall assume or pay any
debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the
United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all
such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Section 5.

The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate
legislation, the provisions of this article.

SOURCES

Used for Audio

Cornell Law School, Legal Information Institute:
“U.S. Constitution/14th Amendment,” online at https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxiv; and
“Fourteenth Amendment,” online at https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/fourteenth_amendment_0.

Kayode Crown, “NAACP
Files Race Discrimination Complaint Against State Over Jackson Water Crisis,”
Mississippi Free Press, September 28,
2022.

Susan Curtis, “Scott Joplin (1868-1917),” Missouri Encyclopedia, undated, online
at https://missouriencyclopedia.org/people/joplin-scott.

Ronald M. Labbe and Jonathan Lurie, The Slaughterhouse Cases: Regulation, Reconstruction, and the
Fourteenth Amendment, University of Kansas Press, Lawrence, 2003.

Library of Congress, “Scott Joplin,” online at https://www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200035815/.

Waldo E. Martin,
Jr., and Patricia Sullivan, Civil Rights
in the United States, Macmillian Reference USA, New York, N.Y., 2000.

Thurgood Marshall Institute, “The 14th Amendment,” online at
https://tminstituteldf.org/tmi-explains/thurgood-marshall-institute-briefs/tmi-briefs-the-14th-amendment/.

Linda R. Monk, The
Words We Live By: Your Annotated Guide to the Constitution, Hachette Books,
New York, N.Y., 2015.

NAACP, “Celebrate and Defend the Fourteenth Amendment
Resolution,” 2013, online at https://naacp.org/resources/celebrate-and-defend-fourteenth-amendment.  (This is the source of the Thurgood Marshall
quote used in this episode.)

Smithsonian National Postal Museum, “The Black Experience:
African Americans on Postage Stamps/Ragtime: Scott Joplin,” online at https://postalmuseum.si.edu/exhibition/the-black-experience-music/ragtime-scott-joplin.

University of Maryland School of
Law, “Equal Protection: Is There a Constitutional Right to a Sewer? - Hawkins
v. Town of Shaw,” Maryland Law
Review Vol. 32, Issue 8, Article 1, 1972, available online at http://digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/mlr/vol32/iss1/8.

U.S. House of Representatives, “Constitutional Amendments
and Major Civil Rights Acts of Congress Referenced in Black Americans in
Congress,” online at https://history.house.gov/Exhibitions-and-Publications/BAIC/Historical-Data/Constitutional-Amendments-and-Legislation/.

U.S. National Archives:
“Milestone Documents: 14th Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution: Civil Rights (1868),” online at https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/14th-amendment; and
“Civil Rights Act (1964),” online at https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/civil-rights-act.

U.S. Senate, “Landmark
Legislation: The Fourtheenth Amendment,” online at https://www.senate.gov/about/origins-foundations/senate-and-constitution/14th-amendment.htm.

For More Information about
Civil Rights in the United States

British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), “The Civil Rights
Movement in America,” online at https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zcpcwmn/revision/1.

Howard University
Law Library, “A Brief History of Civil Rights in the United States,” online at https://library.law.howard.edu/civilrightshistory/intro.

University of Maryland School of Law/Thurgood Marshall Law
Library, “Historical Publications of the United States Commission on Civil
Rights,” online at https://law.umaryland.libguides.com/commission_civil_rights.

U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, online at https://www.usccr.gov/.

U.S. National Archives, “The Constitution of the United
States,” online at https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution.

RELATED VIRGINIA WATER RADIO EPISODES

All Water Radio episodes are listed by category at the Index
link above (http://www.virginiawaterradio.org/p/index.html).  See particularly the “History” subject
category.

This episode is part
of a series entitled Exploring Water in U.S. Civil Rights History.  As of April 3, 2023, other episodes in the
series are as follows.

Series overview – Episode 566, 3-1-21.

Water Symbolism in African American Civil Rights History – Episode 591, 8-23-21.

Uses of Water By and Against African Americans in U.S. Civil Rights History – Episode 616, 2-14-22.

Water Places in U.S. Civil Rights History - Episode 619, 3-7-22.

FOR VIRGINIA TEACHERS
– RELATED STANDARDS OF LEARNING (SOLs) AND OTHER INFORMATION

Following are some Virginia Standards of Learning (SOLs)
that may be supported by this episode’s audio/transcript, sources, or other
information included in this post.

2020 Music SOLs

SOLs at various
grade levels that call for “examining the relationship of music to the other
fine arts and other fields of knowledge.”

2015 Social
Studies SOLs

Grades K-3 Civics
Theme
3.12 – Importance of government in community, Virginia, and
the United States, including government protecting rights and property of
individuals.

Virginia Studies
Course
VS.9 – How national events affected Virginia and its
citizens.

United States History
to 1865 Course
USI.9 – Causes, events, and effects of the Civil War.

United States History:
1865-to-Present Course
USII.3 – Effects of Reconstruction on American life.
USII.8 – Economic, social, and political transformation of
the United States and the world after World War II.
USII.9 – Domestic and international issues during the second
half of the 20th Century and the early 21st Century.

Civics and Economics
Course
CE.2 – Foundations, purposes, and components of the U.S.
Constitution.
CE.3 – Citizenship rights, duties, and responsibilities.
CE.6 – Government at the national level.
CE.7 – Government at the state level.
CE.10 – Public policy at local, state, and national levels.

Virginia and United
States History Course
VUS.7 – Knowledge of the Civil War and Reconstruction eras.
VUS.13 – Changes in the United States in the second half of
the 20th Century.
VUS.14 – Political and social conditions in the 21st
Century.

Government Course
GOVT.3 – Concepts of democracy.
GOVT.4 – Purposes, principles, and structure of the U.S.
Constitution.
GOVT.5 – Federal system of government in the United States.
GOVT.7 – National government organization and powers.
GOVT.8 – State and local government organization and powers.
GOVT.9 – Public policy process at local, state, and national
levels.
GOVT.11 – Civil liberties and civil rights.

Virginia’s SOLs are available from the Virginia Department of Education, online
at https://www.doe.virginia.gov/teaching-learning-assessment/instruction.

Following are links to Water Radio episodes (various topics) designed especially for certain K-12 grade
levels.

Episode 250, 1-26-15 – on boiling, for kindergarten through 3rd grade.
Episode 255, 3-2-15 – on density, for 5th and 6th grade.
Episode 282, 9-21-15 – on living vs. non-living, for kindergarten.
Episode 309, 3-28-16 – on temperature regulation in animals, for kindergarten through 12th grade.
Episode 333, 9-12-16 – on dissolved gases, especially dissolved oxygen in aquatic habitats, for 5th grade.
Episode 404, 1-22-18 – on ice on ponds and lakes, for 4th through 8th grade.
Episode 407, 2-12-18 – on snow chemistry and physics, for high school.
Episode 483, 7-29-19 – on buoyancy and drag, for middle school and high school.
Episode 524, 5-11-20 – on sounds by water-related animals, for elementary school through high school.
Episode 531, 6-29-20 – on various ways that animals get water, for 3rd and 4th grade.
Episode 539, 8-24-20 – on basic numbers and facts about Virginia’s water resources, for 4th and 6th grade.
Episode 606, 12-6-21 – on freezing and ice, for kindergarten through 3rd grade.