he Fair Housing Act banned discrimination in the sale or rent of housing. All of this legislation tipped the balance of power towards the federal government creating tension. During the Civil Rights era, turmoil, social unrest, and political problems showed the tension that was present everywhere. For example, there was Bloody Sunday in Selma, Alabama, which incited the Voting Rights Act. Passed in 1965, it outlawed literacy tests, and provided for federal monitors at polling places throughout the South. This act made it easier and safer for blacks to register and vote. It was controversial, with some arguing that Section 2 of Article 1 gives the states the right to determine voter qualifications, but its supporters said that the guarantee of voting rights takes precedence over state rights. It was a case of the federal government asserting a minimum national standard, thus imposing uniformity. In 1954 the Supreme Court made one of the most important decisions in its long history. It decided in the case of Brown v. Board Of Education of Topeka that it was unconstitutional for states to maintain separate schools for African American and white children. This case over turned the "separate but equal" doctrine established in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson back in 1896. The Court's decision had far reaching effects, influencing civil rights legislation and the civil rights movement of the 1960's. The national government extended its arm into the area of race and education, ordering the states to desegregate their schools. This takes power from the states, inciting tension. The states reacted by resisting it, for example when Alabama Governor George Wallace tried to physically block black students from entering a previously all white school.In the 1980s Congress indirectly imposed uniformity on the national drinking age through federal funding. States that did not impose the minimum age of twenty-one would lose highway funds. It was a conflic...
