Crimes motivated by prejudice date to the beginning of human history. Despite legislation addressing bias-driven offenses hate crimes continue to plague modern American society. Beginning with the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 six days later, this chronology catalogs hate crimes and the relevant statutes and amendments affecting the definition, prosecution and punishment of hate crimes within the U.S. through 2013. The introduction sketches the history of hate crimes legislation through 1968, while an appendix lists and briefly describes hate crime statutes presently in force in various states. From racial violence and attacks on gays and lesbians to the bombings of abortion clinics by "pro-life" extremists to assaults on Muslims in the wake of 9/11, this reference work lays bare an ugly but critical aspect of American history.
