Scott Michels

Thousands of high school students walked out of classes in East Los Angeles in 1968 to protest inequality for Mexican Americans in the public education system. Among the students’ concerns were classes that omitted Hispanic history, a lack of bilingual teachers and a system that steered Chicano students to vocational training rather than college-prep classes. After school administrators ignored students’ demands for improvements, the students planned a series of walkouts in protest.

In 1966, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. took his fight for civil rights to Chicago in hope of ending housing discrimination. He failed, but his example encouraged Dorothy Gautreaux and other plaintiffs to file suit against the Chicago Housing Authority, charging it with racial discrimination. The city had some 18,000 public housing apartments, almost exclusively in Black neighborhoods.

The Watergate campaign finance scandals led to a landmark law designed to limit the influence of money in politics. Decades later, some say the scandal isn’t what’s illegal, it’s what’s legal. Then came the U.S. Supreme Court decision in 2010 known as Citizens United. It and subsequent decisions meant that corporations could give unlimited money to outside political groups. Critics say it reverses decades of reforms meant to fix the illegal practices of the Watergate days. Stay up to date.