Public affairs Iowa State Legislature State Rep. Ruth Ann Gaines I am an African-American in the Iowa State Legislature. I have lived in the state all my life. I am so proud of Iowa’s record of laws and court decisions that have established precedents that expanded civil right and equality for my race before they were adopted on the national level. First, we have the case of Ralph in 1839, which declared that a slave who came to Iowa legally could not be forced to return his or her master because Iowa did not allow slavery. Iowa also desegregated schools in 1868, almost 90 years before the U.S. reached the same decision in Brown vs. the Board of Education. Lastly, Iowa
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