Civil Rights
Movements, leaders, victories and the continuing fight for equality.
q2K BHP
Black History Portal
THE BHP WIRE —
HIDDEN TRUTHS
What's New!
Explore the people, places, events, achievements, struggles and stories that shaped our journey.
Movements, leaders, victories and the continuing fight for equality.
Innovation, patents, science, technology and world-changing contributions.
Pioneers, champions, Negro Leagues, records, activism and excellence.
Meet the people whose lives, choices and achievements shaped the journey.
Black towns, communities, institutions and places where history happened.
Moments that changed communities, movements, institutions and the nation.
In August 1908, a white mob attacked Springfield, Illinois’s Black community, destroying homes and businesses and lynching two Black men. National outrage over the violence helped spur the movement that created the NAACP the following year.
MORE →Reflects the personal views, recollections, and perspective of the author, Mike Davis.
This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
| Planned Parenthood v. Danforth | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Argued March 23, 1976 Decided July 1, 1976 | |
| Full case name | Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri, et al. v. John C. Danforth, et al. |
| Citations | 428 U.S. 52 (more) 96 S. Ct. 2831; 49 L. Ed. 2d 788; 1976 U.S. LEXIS 13 |
| Case history | |
| Prior | 392 F. Supp. 1362 (E.D. Mo. 1975); probable jurisdiction noted, 423 U.S. 819 (1975). |
| Court membership | |
| |
| Case opinions | |
| Majority | Blackmun, joined by Brennan, Stewart, Marshall, and Powell; Stevens (in all but Parts IV-D and IV-E); and Burger, White, and Rehnquist (in all but Parts IV-C, IV-D, IV-E, and IV-G) |
| Concurrence | Stewart, joined by Powell |
| Concur/dissent | White, joined by Burger, Rehnquist |
| Concur/dissent | Stevens |
| Laws applied | |
| Missouri House Act 1211 | |
Superseded by | |
| Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization (2022) | |
Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri v. Danforth, 428 U.S. 52 (1976), is a United States Supreme Court case on abortion.[1] The plaintiffs challenged the constitutionality of a Missouri statute regulating abortion. The Court upheld the right to have an abortion, declaring unconstitutional the statute's requirement of prior written consent from a parent (in the case of a minor) or a spouse (in the case of a married woman).[2]
The plaintiffs brought suit in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, seeking injunctive relief.[3] Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2281, the court convened a three-judge panel to try the case. The panel consisted of Eighth Circuit Judge William Hedgcock Webster, District Judge Harris Kenneth Wangelin, and Senior District Judge Roy Winfield Harper. The court held that Section 6(1) of the challenged act, which "prescribe[d] the standard of care which a person performing an abortion must exercise for the protection of the fetus" was unconstitutionally overbroad. It upheld the rest of the challenged act. Judge Webster concurred with the panel majority in finding 6(1) overboard and upholding "the constitutional validity of Section 2(2)[1] (defining "viability"), Section 3(2) (requiring the woman's written consent to an abortion), Section 10 (maintenance of records) and Section 11 (retention of records)." He dissented from the majority opinion with respect to four other provisions: 3(3) (spousal consent requirement), 3(4) (parental consent requirement), 7 (termination of parental rights if child is born alive), and 9 (prohibition of saline amniocentesis method of abortion). Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri v. Danforth, 392 F.Supp. 1362, 1365 (E.D. Missouri 1975).
The court struck down the provisions of the statute that required spousal and parental consent to obtain an abortion. The court upheld the statute's recordkeeping requirement for abortion facilities and physicians that perform abortions.
In addressing the issue of spousal consent, the Court upheld the lower court's decision that just as the state could not regulate or proscribe abortion during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy nor could the state "delegate to a spouse veto power."
Works related to Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri v. Danforth at WikisourceSource: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.
Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri v. Danforth, 428 U.S. 52 (1976), is a United States Supreme Court case on abortion. The plaintiffs challenged the constitutionality of a Missouri statute regulating abortion. The Court upheld the right to have an abortion, declaring unconstitutional the statute's requirement of prior written consent from a parent (in the case of a minor) or a spouse (in the case of a married woman).
Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that the Constitution of the United States protected the right of pregnant women to choose to have an abortion before the point of fetal viability. The decision struck down many state abortion laws, and it sparked an ongoing abortion debate in the United States about whether, or to what extent, abortion should be legal, who should decide the legality of abortion, and what the role of moral and religious views in the political sphere should be. The decision also shaped debate concerning which methods the Supreme Court should use in constitutional adjudication. Amid years of sustained opposition from the anti-abortion movement and many legal conservatives, the Supreme Court overruled Roe in 2022 in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. The case was brought by Norma McCorvey—under the legal pseudonym "Jane Roe"—who, in 1969, became pregnant with her third child. McCorvey wanted an abortion but lived in Texas, where abortion was legal only when necessary to save the mother's life. Her lawyers, Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffee, filed a lawsuit on her behalf in U.S. federal court against her local district attorney, Henry Wade, alleging that Texas's abortion laws were unconstitutional. A special three-judge court of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas ruled in her favor. The parties appealed this ruling to the Supreme Court. In January 1973, the Supreme Court issued a 7–2 decision in McCorvey's favor holding that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides a fundamental "right to privacy", which protects a pregnant woman's right to an abortion. However, it also held that the right to abortion is not absolute and must be balanced against the government's interest in protecting both women's health and prenatal life. It resolved these competing interests by announcing a pregnancy trimester timetable to govern all abortion regulations in the United States. The Court also classified the right to abortion as "fundamental", which required courts to evaluate challenged abortion laws under the "strict scrutiny" standard, the most stringent level of judicial review in the United States. The Supreme Court's decision in Roe is among the most controversial in U.S. history. Roe was criticized by many in the legal community, including some who thought that Roe reached the correct result but went about it the wrong way, and some called the decision a form of judicial activism. Others argued that Roe did not go far enough, as it was placed within the framework of civil rights rather than human rights. The decision radically reconfigured the voting coalitions of the Republican and Democratic parties in the following decades. Anti-abortion politicians and activists sought for decades to restrict abortion or overrule the decision; polls into the 21st century showed that a plurality and a majority, especially into the late 2010s to early 2020s, opposed overruling Roe. Despite criticism of the decision, the Supreme Court reaffirmed Roe's central holding in Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), although it overruled Roe's trimester framework and abandoned its "strict scrutiny" standard in favor of an "undue burden" test.
The Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc. (PPFA), or simply Planned Parenthood, is an American nonprofit organization that provides reproductive and sexual healthcare and sexual education in the United States and globally. It is a member of the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF). PPFA has its roots in Brooklyn, New York, where Margaret Sanger opened the first birth control clinic in the United States, in 1916. Sanger founded the American Birth Control League in 1921, and 14 years after her exit as its president, ABCL's successor organization became Planned Parenthood in 1942. Planned Parenthood consists of 159 medical and non-medical affiliates, which operate over 600 health clinics in the United States. It partners with organizations in 12 countries globally. The organization directly provides a variety of reproductive health services and sexual education, contributes to research in reproductive technology and advocates for the protection and expansion of reproductive rights. Research shows that closures of Planned Parenthood clinics lead to increases in maternal mortality rates. PPFA is the largest single provider of reproductive health services and the largest single provider of abortions in the United States. In its 2023 Annual Report, PPFA reported seeing over two million patients and performing a total of 9.13 million discrete services including 392,715 abortions. Its combined annual revenue is US$1.3 billion, including approximately $530 million in government funding such as Medicaid reimbursements. Throughout its history, PPFA and its member clinics have been the subject of support, criticism, controversy, protests, and violent attacks.
The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri (in case citations, E.D. Mo.) is a trial level federal district court based in St. Louis, Missouri, with jurisdiction over fifty counties in the eastern half of Missouri. The court is one of ninety-four district-level courts which make up the first tier of the U.S. federal judicial system. Judges of this court preside over civil and criminal trials on federal matters that originate within the borders of its jurisdiction. It is organized into three divisions, with court held in St. Louis, Hannibal, and Cape Girardeau. The court was formed when the District of Missouri was divided into East and West in 1857, and its boundaries have changed little since that division. In its history it has heard a number of important cases that made it to the United States Supreme Court, covering issues related to freedom of speech, abortion rights, property rights, and campaign finance law. There are currently nine active judges, five judges in senior status, and seven magistrate judges attached to the court. As of August 2025, the United States attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri is Thomas C. Albus. He was confirmed by the Senate on December 18, 2025.
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
MORE →Madam C.J. Walker