Notes on a History of Affirmative Action: Three Affirmative Actions in America Michiko Yasui This essay traces a history of the affirmative action policies in America, finds three of them and presumes the root is in the Reconstruction Era in the 19th century. By doing so the essay researches the process of how the policy had been succeeded by the following governments and finally was took over by the Civil Rights movements. The affirmative action policies, which firstly appeared more than a century ago, imply they are ‘compensatory’ policies for the people who have been suffering disadvantageous treatment in the course of the nation-making of the United States. How they differed depends on how the nation included or excluded its people in or out of the nation. Therefore this is the subject of historical research. However, the arguments on the affirmative action policies have been and are rather more sociological, jurisprudential and political than historical. The reason of this tendency is that the policies are still functional and effective in many aspects of the life of American people. This essay argues seeing the affirmative action policies in the historical perspective will help us understand the profound meaning of the policies.