Former Vice President and South Carolina Senator John C. Calhoun organized a filibuster to delay a bill that would have established Oregon as a free state. Calhoun was a racist who believed that slavery was a “positive good” for enslaved people. He knew that each new state that outlawed slavery further threatened the power of slave states, so he used the filibuster to delay bills that advanced the cause of abolition.

Although Black men were technically given the right to vote after the Civil War, it would take well over a century for Congress to pass a bill that protected Black people from voter suppression and intimidation. Poll taxes, payments required from Black before they voted, served as an example of one of these tactics. A 1942 bill outlawing the practice passed in the House but failed to defeat a Senate filibuster. Similar bills were filibustered in 1944 and 1946. It wasn’t until 1964, 22 years after the first poll tax bill was passed by the House, that poll taxes were eliminated through the ratification of the 24th Amendment.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is one of the most consequential pieces of legislation in American history; It ended legal segregation in all businesses and public spaces, and also provided protections for people who experienced discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion and/or gender. But before the landmark law could pass, a group of racist senators organized by Robert Byrd of West Virginia led a filibuster that nearly defeated the bill and delayed its passage for 60 days.

For decades, Congress has failed to enact meaningful immigration reform. Even when it comes to the country’s DREAMers, or immigrants who were brought to the country as children and whose only home has been in the United States, Congress has offered no protection. In 2010, a group of Democratic and Republican legislators introduced the DREAM Act. The bill provided a pathway to citizenship for these young immigrants and would have also cleared the way for states to allow undocumented students to receive in-state tuition at some colleges and universities. Despite having the support of a bipartisan majority of senators and the overwhelming support of the American people, the DREAM Act was killed by a Republican filibuster, and serious congressional action on immigration reform has not been considered since.

The Senate’s recent move to deny a minimum wage increase may be frustrating, but it is hardly the first time senators have denied workers a fair wage. In 2014, Senate Democrats introduced a bill that would have increased the federal minimum wage to $10.10. Once again, the bill had the support necessary to pass, but a Republican filibuster blocked it from a final vote.