1973

In San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that education was not a fundamental right under the Constitution and that property-tax-based school funding did not violate equal protection. The ruling foreclosed federal challenges to school funding inequality, leaving Black and Latino students in property-poor districts with systematically underfunded schools.

In San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that education was not a fundamental constitutional right and that property-tax school funding did not violate equal protection. The ruling foreclosed federal challenges to funding inequality leaving Black students in underfunded schools.

Governor Nelson Rockefeller signed legislation imposing mandatory minimum sentences of 15 years to life for possession of four ounces or sale of two ounces of heroin, cocaine, or marijuana. The laws disproportionately imprisoned Black and Latino New Yorkers. The statutes became a national model for punitive drug legislation that fueled mass incarceration.

1973 brought landmark Black mayoral victories: Coleman Young in Detroit, Maynard Jackson in Atlanta, and Tom Bradley in Los Angeles. These followed Carl Stokes (Cleveland, 1967) and Richard Hatcher (Gary, 1967). The elections represented significant political gains but also the transfer of power over cities whose tax bases and employment were being eroded by deindustrialization and white flight.

1973 brought landmark Black mayoral victories: Coleman Young in Detroit, Maynard Jackson in Atlanta, and Tom Bradley in Los Angeles. These elections represented significant political gains but cities faced eroding tax bases and deindustrialization that constrained Black mayors' ability to deliver structural change.

NYPD plainclothes officer Thomas Shea shot and killed Clifford Glover, a 10-year-old Black child, in South Jamaica, Queens, while Glover was walking with his stepfather Add Armstead. Shea claimed Glover reached for a weapon; no weapon was found. Shea was acquitted of murder in 1974, sparking outrage. Gil Scott-Heron memorialized Glover in the song 'Whitey on the Moon.'

The District of Columbia Home Rule Act was signed on December 24, 1973, granting Washington, DC its first elected mayor and city council since Congress stripped the city of local government in 1874. Given DC's majority-Black population, home rule was a civil rights issue. Walter Washington became the first elected mayor in 1975, and Marion Barry was elected in 1978.

The D.C. Circuit Court ordered HEW to enforce Title VI desegregation requirements against Southern states maintaining racially dual higher education systems. Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia were forced to submit desegregation plans for public universities.

In Adams v. Richardson, the D.C. Circuit Court ordered the Department of Health, Education and Welfare to enforce Title VI desegregation requirements against Southern states that maintained racially dual higher education systems. The ruling forced states including Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia to submit desegregation plans for their public universities, though implementation was protracted and contested.

Into the 1970s, Black women were sterilized without consent so routinely in the South that the practice was nicknamed the "Mississippi appendectomy." Fannie Lou Hamer was a victim; the Relf sisters' case finally exposed it.