Plessy v Ferguson Plessy v Ferguson was a landmark case taken to the United States Supreme Court. The ruling of the case was important to the jurisprudence in the United States. Homer Plessy brought the case to the Supreme Court after the Louisiana Supreme Court did not rule in his favor. The 7-1 ruling in 1896 showed the effect of the Jim Crow laws on the two different races in the nation. The Plessy v Ferguson case shaped race relations for years to come. The Supreme Court’s decision put the judicial stamp of approval on segregation and the “separate but equal” doctrine. The history behind this case is just as important as the case itself. In 1890, Louisiana passed the Separate Car Act which forced all railroad companies to provide separate but equal accommodations for white and nonwhite passengers. If someone sat in the wrong section, the punishment was a fine of $25 or 20 days in jail. A group called the Citizens Committee, made of mostly black activists decided to challenge the law. To prove the unconstitutionality of the law they created a plan and Homer Plessy was chosen go against the segregationists by disobeying the law. Homer Plessy was seven-eighths white and one-eighth black and had the appearance of a white man. Under Louisiana law Plessy was classified as black, and required to sit in the colored car. On June 7, 1892, Homer Plessy purchased a first-class ticket on a train from New Orleans to Covington, Louisiana and sat in an empty seat in the white-only section. He was then asked to move but refused and got arrested for violating the Separate Car Act. Homer Plessy was convicted of and sentenced to pay a $25 fine. During Plessy’s case, Homer Plessy v. The State of Louisiana, he tried to prove that the Separ... ... middle of paper ... ...African Americans were almost always “second-class” to the ones of whites. The ruling permitted state governments freedom when they had to deal with questions of race, and guaranteed states the ability to create separate institutions as long as they were “equal”.It seemed as though the Southern states did not just separate the races but supported differences in the quality of treatment towards blacks. The Supreme Court’s ruling gave the “"constitutional nod" to the unfair and inferior treatment to blacks. The “separate but equal” doctrine characterized American society until the doctrine was struck down during the Brown v. Board of Education case in 1954. The court decided that segregating children by race in public schools was unequal and violated the Fourteenth Amendment. The doctrine did not give blacks the same rights as whites and the court finally realized it.
In the 1954 court ruling of Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court ruled that segregation of schools was unconstitutional and violated the Fourteenth Amendment (Justia, n.d.). During the discussion, the separate but equal ruling in 1896 from Plessy v. Ferguson was found to cause black students to feel inferior because white schools were the superior of the two. Furthermore, the ruling states that black students missed out on opportunities that could be provided under a system of desegregation (Justia, n.d.). So the process of classification and how to balance schools according to race began to take place.
In 1896, the Supreme Court was introduced with a case that not only tested both levels of government, state and federal, but also helped further establish a precedent that it was built off of. This court case is commonly known as the case that confirmed the doctrine “separate but equal”. This doctrine is a crucial part of our Constitution and more importantly, our history. This court case involved the analysis of amendments, laws, and divisions of power. Plessy v. Ferguson was a significant court case in U.S history because it was shaped by federalism and precedent, which were two key components that were further established and clarified as a result of the Supreme Court’s final decision.
The Plessy v Ferguson case would be overturned, ruling the “separate but equal” law to be unconstitutional. Melba Beals was in school that day and was sent home early with the warning to hurry and stay in groups. Even so, it had been decades since the passing of the Fourteenth Amendment. No much had changed. Melba’s teacher knew that this ruling would cause rage among the citizens of Little Rock and she was right.
Plessy v. Ferguson, 1896, is a landmark in United States Supreme Court’s decision in the United States, of state laws requiring racial segregation in private businesses, under the doctrine of separate but equal.
Homer Plessy vs. the Honorable John H. Ferguson ignited the spark in our nation that ultimately led to the desegregation of our schools, which is shown in the equality of education that is given to all races across the country today. “The Plessy decision set the precedent that ‘separate’ facilities for blacks and whites were constitutional as long as they were ‘equal’” (“The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow”). The case of Plessy vs. Ferguson not only illuminated the racial inequality within our education system, but also brought to light how the standard of ‘separate but equal’ affected every aspect of African American lives.
Plessy v. Ferguson , a very important case of 1896 in which the Supreme Court of the United States upheld the legality of racial segregation. At the time of the ruling, segregation between blacks and whites already existed in most schools, restaurants, and other public facilities in the American South. In the Plessy decision, the Supreme Court ruled that such segregation did not violate the 14th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. This amendment provides equal protection of the law to all U.S. citizens, regardless of race. The court ruled in Plessy that racial segregation was legal as long as the separate facilities for blacks and whites were “equal.”
Separate but Equal doctrine existed long before the Supreme Court accepted it into law, and on multiple occasions it arose as an issue before then. In 1865, southern states passed laws called “Black Codes,” which created restrictions on the freed African Americans in the South. This became the start of legal segregation as juries couldn’t have African Americans, public schools became segregated, and African Americans had restrictions on testifying against majorities. In 1887, Jim Crow Laws started to arise, and segregation becomes rooted into the way of life of southerners (“Timeline”). Then in 1890, Louisiana passed the “Separate Car Act.” This forced rail companies to provide separate rail cars for minorities and majorities. If a minority sat in the wrong car, it cost them $25 or 20 days in jail. Because of this, an enraged group of African American citizens had Homer Plessy, a man who only had one eighth African American heritage, purchase a ticket and sit in a “White only” c...
“Separate but equal” facilities should be unconstitutional because it violated the 13th and 14th Amendment and everyone was created equally, so no race should be separated from another race. In my opinion, Homer Plessy never violated any law or did anything that was wrong as well as how “separate but equal” facilities were unconstitutional. Harlan once said, “Everyone knows that the statues in question had its origin in the purpose, not so much to exclude white persons from railroad cars occupied by blacks, as to exclude colored people from coaches occupied by or assigned to white persons. “
Even though laws like this undermined multiple amendments they were overlooked by the supreme court after the case of Plessy v. Ferguson. The Plessy v. Ferguson case happened when Homer Plessy sat deliberately in the white car after Louisiana passed their Separate Car Act. He was only ⅛ black but under Louisiana law that was enough to be legally black. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court and Plessy’s lawyer argued that the Separat...
Homer Plessy described himself as being seven eighths white and one eighth black. Plessy who looked white let the conductor know that he was of mixed race then proceeded to take a seat on a spot that was reserved for white people. He was asked to move but refused to do so and was later forcibly removed from the train. During the trial Plessy argued that the Louisiana Law was unconstitutional and that it violated his 13th and 14th Amendment rights. The lower Courts dismissed his argument and the Louisiana Law (The Separated Car Act) was found Constitutional. Plessy later appealed to the Supreme
In 1896, Supreme Court decided the fate of thousands of Americans in the Supreme Court case of Plessy v.s. Ferguson. Homer Plessy sat in the white designed railroad car,of which he purchased a first class ticket for, and was arrested because being 1/8 black he had violated the Seperate Car
This case was brought to the Supreme Court with Plessey’s argument being that his 13th and 14th Amendments was being violated. But Louisiana argued that the 14th Amendment states that everyone is to be treated equally and that is exactly what happened. They said that the cars were separate but equal and that abided by the Constitution while keeping the Jim Crow laws. The Supreme Court decided that no law was violated and took the state’s side. The Court upheld Plessey’s conviction, and ruled that the 14th Amendment guarantees the right to “equal facilities,” not the “same facilities.” In this ruling, the Supreme Court created the principle of “separate but equal,”(“Judicial Review”,
African Americans are still facing segregation today that was thought to have ended many years ago. Brown v. Board of Education declared the decision of having separate schools for black and white students to be unconstitutional. As Brown v. Board of Education launches its case, we see how it sets the infrastructure to end racial segregation in all public spaces. Today, Brown v. Board of Education has made changes to our educational system and democracy, but hasn’t succeeded to end racial segregation due to the cases still being seen today. Brown v. Board of Education to this day remains one of the most important cases that African Americans have brought to the surface for the good of the United States. Brown v. Board of Education didn’t just focus on children and education, it also focused on how important equality is even when society claimed that African Americans were treated equal, when they weren’t. This was the case that opened the eyes of many American’s to notice that the separate but equal strategy was in fact unlawful.
Because of the 13th and 14th Amendments freeing slaves and granting equal protection under the law grants Jon the same rights to ride the train as any other citizen. Santa Clara County v. Southern Public Railroad, Even though the case was not about the 14th Amendment, Justice Morrison Remick Waite made it so by arguing that corporations must comply with the 14th Amendment. Santa Clara County v. Southern Public Railroad, 118 U.S. 394 (1886). Plessy v. Ferguson, Homer Plessy sat in a whites-only train car, he was asked to move to the car reserved for blacks, because state law mandated segregation. The court held that segregation is not necessarily unlawful discrimination as long as the races are treated equally. The impact of Plessy was to relegate blacks to second-class citizenship. Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896). However, this is not equal
The Supreme Court is perhaps most well known for the Brown vs. Board of Education decision in 1954. By declaring that segregation in schools was unconstitutional, Kevern Verney says a ‘direct reversal of the Plessy … ruling’1 58 years earlier was affected. It was Plessy which gave southern states the authority to continue persecuting African-Americans for the next sixty years. The first positive aspect of Brown was was the actual integration of white and black students in schools. Unfortunately, this was not carried out to a suitable degree, with many local authorities feeling no obligation to change the status quo. The Supreme Court did issue a second ruling, the so called Brown 2, in 1955. This forwarded the idea that integration should proceed 'with all deliberate speed', but James T. Patterson tells us even by 1964 ‘only an estimated 1.2% of black children ... attended public schools with white children’2. This demonstrates that, although the Supreme Court was working for Civil Rights, it was still unable to force change. Rathbone agrees, saying the Supreme Court ‘did not do enough to ensure compliance’3. However, Patterson goes on to say that ‘the case did have some impact’4. He explains how the ruling, although often ignored, acted ‘relatively quickly in most of the boarder s...