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Racial Discrimination in America in 1865
Plessy v Ferguson case brief
Racial Discrimination in America in 1865
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The case of Plessy v Ferguson in the United States had a great impact in the struggle for African American rights. Unfortunately, this case upheld the Louisiana Law and further allowed segregation in the South which lasted for more than 50 years. This event created a large division among the supporters and those who disagreed with the final ruling of this case. The ruling of the Supreme Court of the Plessy v Ferguson case was a major set back towards African American freedom. It opened the doors toward the concept of “separate but equal”, which became a law. This furthered segregation in the states, especially in the South, and made it tougher to end racial discrimination. The ruling also led to more racial separations in public areas
Laci Peterson, a 27-year-old wife who was eight months pregnant, disappeared on December 24, 2002. When the body of the California woman and her unborn child were found four months later, her husband, Scott, was charged with two counts of murder. Detective Craig Grogan gave a sworn statement that he had probable cause to believe Mr. Peterson committed two counts of the crime of 187 Penal Code, homicide, on or about December 23, 2002 or December 24,2002, in the county of Stanislaus. April 17, 2003 at 0658 hours the Judge of the Superior Court in Stanislaus County, California issued a warrant for the arrest of Scott Lee Peterson. The court found that the District Attorney’s office did, in fact, have probable cause to bring Scott Peterson in. The Judge specifically addressed bail in the warrant. No bail was granted. April 18, 2003 at 1110 hours, Scott Peterson was arrested at the Torrey Pines Golf Course, in Sand Diego County, California. At the time of his arrest, Peterson had colored his hair blonde, grown a beard and mustache, and was carrying $15,000.00 in cash. During his arrest police also discovered that Peterson’s car was full of camping and survival equipment. Peterson was arrested less than 20 minutes from the Mexican border. Peterson waived booking in San Mateo County, California, and was transferred back to Stanislaus County, California, where he was formally booked by the Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Department.
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.
Congress in 1990 enacted the Gun-Free School Zone Act, making it a federal offence to possess a firearm in a school zone. Congress relied on the authority of the Commerce Clause of the Constitution to justify passage of legislation as a way of stemming the rising tide of gun related incidents in public schools.
The landmark Supreme Court cases of Dred Scott v. Sandford, Plessy v. Ferguson, and Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas have had a tremendous effect on the struggle for equal rights in America. These marker cases have set the precedent for cases dealing with the issue of civil equality for the last 150 years.
Throughout American History, many minorities have fallen victim to cruel discrimination and inequality, African Americans were one of such minorities that greatly suffered from the white majority’s upper hand. After the end of the Civil War and the Reconstruction period following it, many people, especially the Southern population, were extremely against African Americans obtaining equal rights in the American society. Due to this, these opponents did everything in their power to limit and even fully strip African Americans of their rights. The Supreme Court case of Plessy v Ferguson in 1896 is an excellent example of the obstacles put forth by the white population against their black counterparts in their long and arduous fight for civil liberty and equality. Even though the court upheld the discriminatory Louisiana law with an 8-1 decision, John Marshall Harlan’s dissent in the case played a significant role in the history of the United States for it predicted all the injustice African Americans would be forced to undergo for many more years, mainly due to this landmark decision.
The court case of Plessy vs. Ferguson created nationwide controversy in the United States due to the fact that its outcome would ultimately affect every citizen of our country. On Tuesday, June 7th, 1892, Mr. Homer Plessy purchased a first class ticket on the East Louisiana Railroad for a trip from New Orleans to Covington. He then entered a passenger car and took a vacant seat in a coach where white passengers were also sitting. There was another coach assigned to people who weren’t of the white race, but this railroad was a common carrier and was not authorized to discriminate passengers based off of their race. (“Plessy vs. Ferguson, syllabus”).Mr. Plessy was a “Creole of Color”, a person who traces their heritage back to some of the Caribbean, French, and Spanish who settled into Louisiana before it was part of the US (“The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow”). Even though Plessy was only one eighth African American, and could pass for a full white man, still he was threatened to be penalized and ejected from the train if he did not vacate to the non-white coach (“Plessy vs. Ferguson, syllabus). In ...
During the four decades following reconstruction, the position of the Negro in America steadily deteriorated. The hopes and aspirations of the freedmen for full citizenship rights were shattered after the federal government betrayed the Negro and restored white supremacist control to the South. Blacks were left at the mercy of ex-slaveholders and former Confederates, as the United States government adopted a laissez-faire policy regarding the “Negro problem” in the South. The era of Jim Crow brought to the American Negro disfranchisement, social, educational, and occupational discrimination, mass mob violence, murder, and lynching. Under a sort of peonage, black people were deprived of their civil and human rights and reduced to a status of quasi-slavery or “second-class” citizenship. Strict legal segregation of public facilities in the southern states was strengthened in 1896 by the Supreme Court’s decision in the Plessy vs. Ferguson case. Racists, northern and southern, proclaimed that the Negro was subhuman, barbaric, immoral, and innately inferior, physically and intellectually, to whites—totally incapable of functioning as an equal in white civilization.
The Plessy vs. Ferguson (1896) ‘equal but separate’ decision robbed it of its meaning and confirmed this wasn’t the case as the court indicated this ruling did not violate black citizenship and did not imply superior and inferior treatment ,but it indeed did as it openly permitted racial discrimination in a landmark decision of a 8-1 majority ruling, it being said was controversial, as white schools and facilities received near to more than double funding than black facilities negatively contradicted the movement previous efforts on equality and maintaining that oppression on
The Plessy v Ferguson case was an example that there was still discrimination in America. In 1890, Louisiana passed a law called the Separate Car Act that says all railroad
They arrested Plessy, who claimed that the law violated his thirteenth and fourteenth amendment rights. When found guilty, he brought the case to the Louisiana State Supreme Court, but they confirmed the court's decision. Plessy then took the case “Plessy v. Ferguson” to the United States Supreme Court; however, the United States Supreme Court ruled in favor of Ferguson because they found that the laws attempted to enforce equality before the law, and not in social situations (Harlan 1). This famous case started the official acceptance of separate but equal laws, but what happened because of this? In the first twenty years of the separate Equal Laws being in effect, the various minorities suffered multiple consequences.
The request for an injunction pushed the court to make a difficult decision. On one hand, the judges agreed with the Browns; saying that: “Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children...A sense of inferiority affects the motivation of a child to learn” (The National Center For Public Research). On the other hand, the precedent of Plessy v. Ferguson allowed separate but equal school systems for blacks and whites, and no Supreme Court ruling had overturned Plessy yet. Be...
“Separate is not equal.” In the case of Plessey vs. Ferguson in 1896 the U.S. Supreme Court said racial segregation didn’t violate the Constitution, so racial segregation became legal. In 1954 the case of Oliver Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka this case proved that separate is not equal. Oliver Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka was revolutionary to the education system, because colored people and Caucasians had segregated schools. The Caucasians received a better education and the colored people argued that they were separate but not equal. This would pave the way for integrated schools and change the education system as we knew it.
Plessy vs Ferguson was a case in which it stated a precedent. In 1892, an African American named Homer Plessy did not give up his seat to a white man("HISTORY OF BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION"). He then got arrested and taken to jail. Plessy than went to the Supreme Court to argue that his Fourteenth Amendment was violated. However, the Supreme Court ruled against Plessy and set the precedent that “separate but equal” is really equal("HISTORY OF BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION") .
Segregation has played a substantial role throughout American history. Many court cases and different trials in different time periods have proven that a person’s skin color can dictate many things, such as where they go to school and where they sit on public transportation. The struggle to achieve equality was made even more difficult by the legislation of the Plessy vs. Ferguson case.