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An essay about segregation in the world . black Americans
An essay about segregation in the world . black Americans
Racism segregation in the united states
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For over 50 years, the southern states of the American enforced a policy of separate accommodations for blacks and whites on the buses and trains, and in hotels, theaters and schools. In 1890, the Louisiana State Legislature proposed the Separate Car Bill which segregated Blacks from Whites in separate but equal conditions on train cars. Violations of the law were considered as a misdemeanor crime that would give punishment by charge a fine of at most $25 or twenty days arrest in jail. Even though blacks superficially got their rights, but many of them still disagreed with the ruling, and felt that the separating blacks from whites in public facilities created inequality and marked one race as inferior to another. Homer Plessy, who has seven-eighths Caucasian descent and one-eighth African descent attempted to sit in an all-white-railroad car in 1896. After refusing to sit in the black railway carriage car, Plessy was arrested for violating the Louisiana Separate Car Act, which required that all railroads operating in the state provide "equal but separate accommodations" for white and African American passengers, it prohibited passengers from entering accommodations other than those to which they had been assigned on basis of their race. Plessy went to court and argued that the separate cars violated the Thirteen and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution, which was made in order to abolish slavery and to enforce the absolute equality of the two races before the law. The judge of this time was John Howard Ferguson; he stated that Louisiana had the right to regulate railroad companies as long as they operated within state boundaries. Plessy was convicted and sentenced to pay a $25 fine. Plessy decided to appeal the decision to ... ... middle of paper ... ...y face the more basic question of whether separating whites and blacks was an inherently discriminating act that by nature ensured unequal treatment. In Brown vs. Board of Education in 1954, the Court overturned the Plessy decision, declaring, in a now-famous phrase, “Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” My view on this particular case sides with Plessy rather than Ferguson. I believe in total equality and the idea of no difference between fellow human beings. There should be no distinction made between that which is for the white man, and that which is for the black man. Public institutions should be used by everyone together, and the act of riding a train car should not be a racial matter. I also agree that this segregation was a violation of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendment in that it didn't promote the idea of equality among the races.
The earliest system of segregation can be found, interestingly enough, not in the South but in the North. This system, “with the backing of legal and extra-legal codes…permeated all aspects of Negro life in the free states by 1860” (Woodward 18). In the North, blacks were separated from whites in nearly every social aspect of their lives: they sat apart from whites in theatres and concert halls, they were often completely excluded from hotels, restaurants, and resorts (unless they entered as workers), worshipped in all black pews or even sometimes in completely black churches. If they intended to receive Communion with the whites, they were forced to wait until the whites had completed the sacrament. They were even buried in separate cemeteries (18-19). It is also interesting, as Woodward notes, that those who opposed the northern system were usually unable to make any headw...
Throughout history, segregation has always been a part of United States history. This is showed through the relationships between the blacks and whites, the whites had a master-slave relationship and the blacks had a slave-master relationship. And this is also true after the civil war, when the blacks attained rights! Even though they had obtained rights the whites were always one step above them and lead superiority over them continuously. This is true in the Supreme court case “Plessy v. Ferguson”. The Court case ruled that blacks and whites had to have separate facilities and it was only constitutional if the facilities were equal. this means that they also constituted that this was not a violation of the 13th and 14th amendment because they weren 't considered slaves and had “equal” facilities even though they were separate. Even if the Supreme court case “Plessy v. Ferguson” set the precedent that separate but equal was correct, I would disagree with that precedent, because they interpreted
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”,
Plessy v. Ferguson was the first major inquiry into the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal-protection clause, which prohibits states from denying equal protection of the laws to any person within their jurisdictions. Although the majority opinion did not contain the phrase separate but equal, it gave constitutional sanction to laws designed to achieve racial segregation by means of separate and supposedly equal public facilities and services for African Americans and whites. It served as a controlling judicial precedent until it was overturned by the ...
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 ...
While Jim Crow was blatantly incongruent with the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of the full benefits of citizenry, it was justified by the Plessy vs. Ferguson Case of 1896 in which the Supreme Court upheld Louisiana’s Separate Car Act, requiring racially segregated railroad facilities, under the condition that such facilities were equal. This “separate but equal” doctrine was quickly, and legally, applied t...
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 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
In 1887, Jim Crow Laws started to arise, and segregation became 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 minor 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” car on June 7, 1892.
Board of Education case of Topeka, Kansas in 1954 was a unanimous Supreme Court decision that overturned the Plessy vs. Ferguson case of 1896. The decision stated that separate but equal rule violated a person equal protection rights as stated in the 14th amendment. This case proved to be a model case of future civil rights lawsuits.
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...
The court ultimately found the segregation of children in public schools based on race, even though the physical facilities and other "tangible" factors may be equal, deprived the children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities. In my opinion, the ruling was considered just at the time, although I may feel as if more could have been done to fully eliminate segregation as this ruling only ruled on public education. I think that it is important to recognize the detrimental effect of segregation on the African-American children. White supremacy stems from inferiority. Plessy v. Ferguson reinforces racism as part of an ingrained system.
Transportation was another area where blacks and whites were treated differently. The Montgomery, Alabama city code required that all public transportation be segregated. Almost 100 years after the Civil War, blacks had to sit separately from the whites. Seats could be assigned and blacks could be asked to give up their seats to white passengers. On December 1, 1955, Ro...
Southern States such as Texas, Florida and Alabama passed laws between 1870 and 1900 which were known as Jim Crow laws, and kept black and white. people apart from the world. The Federal Government in the more powerful North of the country didn't like Jim Crow laws, but did nothing to stop them. Then on June 7th 1892 a black shoemaker called Homer Plessy was jailed for sitting in a white seat on the East Louisiana Railway. He took his case to the State Court, and it eventually went all the way to the court.
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.