Since the earliest days of the American republic, citizens seeking justice and freedom gathered on Capitol Hill. The Supreme Court and the United States Capitol building are located within the Capitol Hill district, as well as several historic homes in the adjacent neighborhood. Together, these structures weave the narrative of America's near constant struggle to provide equality and civil liberty to all.

In 1820, Congress made its first attempt to limit the expansion of American slavery with The Missouri Compromise. By mid-century, many legislators argued that the "peculiar institution" was not aligned with American ideals. The Supreme Court propelled the country towards civil war, with the controversial decision Dred Scott v. Sandford, which stated in part that Congress had no authority to stop the expansion of slavery.

In December of 1865, Congress ratified the Thirteenth Amendment, outlawing slavery in the United States. Fredrick Douglass, a resident of Capitol Hill, watched the first African American, Hiram Revels, take his seat in Congress just five years later. Douglass dedicated the Freedmen's Monument in nearby Lincoln Park in 1876, the first national monument depicting an African American.

Eight decades later, the Supreme Court ruled racial segregation unconstitutional. NAACP lawyer Thurgood Marshall argued for integration in Brown v. Board of Education, and later served as the Supreme Court's first black justice.

Congress ratified the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments during Reconstruction to secure voting rights for African Americans; however, it took nearly a century to make these rights a permanent reality. Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to uphold federal authority to enforce civil rights against state and local governments.

Capitol Hill represented the nation's changing attitudes about race and equality in America, and all the struggles of the civil rights movement culminated on this site. Today, Americans continue to use the judicial and legislative processes to secure the American promise of freedom for every citizen.

Text written by Kimberly Messer,

Graduate Student, University of West Florida