Supreme Court History: The Plessy V. Ferguson Case

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.”

Plessy vs. Ferguson Results Plessy vs. Ferguson was a famous trial that enforced separate, but equal laws among all races. The trial granted colored citizens’ rights, such as public or semi-public access to all facilities that white citizens could access. However, this trial did not fix all of the social issues at the time. Segregation spread and became more violent than ever because of black citizens’ newly found rights. This inspired many civil rights movements in the future, for blacks to stand up for their own rights.

The Plessy v. Ferguson (16 U.S. 537 (1896) case was argued on April 13, 1896 and decided May 18, 1896, which became the standard for a long line of “separate but equal” decisions upholding the Jim Crow laws, and its consequences echoed in American education, business, and polices for decades to come.

The landmark case of Plessy v. Ferguson is a Constitutional case in which it had to be decided who the constitution meant when it said "all men are created equal." This case is very important to our constitution and to the people being governed by the constitution because it brought up issues that hadn't been discussed in the U.S before. This case shows the degree of federalism and how much the government paid attention to it. The amendments in the constitution do not apply to a simple race or ethnicity. Throughout history laws have been made and destroyed at the cost of colored people, in the Plessy v. Ferguson case it is shown that due to the thirteenth and fourteenth amendments all citizens have equal protection under the law. Plessy was denied his right, as well as other colored people because they belonged to different bathrooms, they belonged to different train cars and they belonged to different water fountains at this time in history, but Plessy'

Plessy v. Ferguson This was a petition filed in the supreme court of Louisiana in 1896, by Homer Plessy, the plaintiff. He filed this petition against the Honorable John H. Ferguson, judge of The petitioner was a citizen of the United States and a descent meaning he had both white and African American ethnic backgrounds. Keep in mind that at this time Blacks were not considered equal to whites.

He sat in the white's section and purposely stated to the conducted that he was one eight African American. This was all a test backed up by the Citizen's Committee. The conductor told him to leave but Plessy refused. He was kicked off the train and jailed overnight. The bond to release him was $500. Plessy was protesting for the 13th and 14th amendment rights. He wanted to bring awareness to the fact that African Americans were not treated equally due to the color of their skin. Plessy pressed charges against the state of Louisiana for restricting and limiting the Equal Protection Clause which is under the 14th amendment. This implies that no state can limit the equal protection of laws to any individual. No African American should be denied any rights that a white person has. Ferguson countered Plessy's points by stating that each state has the right to make rules in order to maintain public safety. Keeping races from intermixing would lessen the violence for everyone. Judge Ferguson found Plessy guilty at the Louisiana state court. Plessy kept fighting and after bringing attention to the trial and suing Ferguson for a wrong interpretation of the case it made its way to the Supreme

Furthermore, there was a young girl named Linda Brown who attended a school very far away from her house. On the other hand, there is a school not to far from her ,but it’s an all white school. So Linda Brown and her family took it to court saying that blacks not being able to go to any school is a violation of the 14th amendment. The lower courts shut them down so they appealed the case to the Supreme Court. The dissenting opinion was "We conclude that the doctrine of 'separate but equal ' has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." —Chief Justice Earl Warren. This was the precedent that was established and the final decision.The majority opinion was “The "separate but equal" doctrine adopted in Plessy v. Ferguson has no place in the field of public education.(Find Law)”.Which means that they are saying that since the last case happened on a rail car and not public education it shouldn’t have

The case “Plessy v. Ferguson” was a test of a Louisiana law’s constitutionality. It took 50 years to realize it, but the constitutionally and morally right way was to end segregation. This case was never about Plessy not being able to ride on a white only car on a train headed to Covington, Louisiana. It was about a group of black citizens trying to stop segregation from ever

There was no clarification on what race would be considered white or what would be considered black. During this incident, “Homer Plessy, who was seven-eighths white and one-eighth African American, purchased a rail ticket for travel within Louisiana and took a seat in a car reserved for white passengers. (The state Supreme Court had ruled earlier that the law could not be applied to interstate travel.) After refusing to move to a car for African Americans, he was arrested and charged with violating the Separate Car Act.”(Duignan 2017). Judge Ferguson ruled that the separation was fair and did not violate the fourteenth amendment. The state Supreme Court also backed up this decision. The case was brought to the Supreme Court and "The law was challenged in the Supreme Court on grounds that it conflicted with the 13th and 14th Amendments. By a 7-1 vote, the Court said that a state law that “implies merely a legal distinction” between the two races did not conflict with the 13th Amendment forbidding involuntary servitude, nor did it tend to reestablish such a condition." (History.com Staff 2009). This decision set the key precedent of Separate but Equal in the United States. Racial segregation kept growing.

This escalated across the country over the years and led to Blacks being viewed as criminals for even the smallest of crimes. The infamous Plessy vs. Ferguson case of 1896 that challenged the constitutionality of segregation in Louisiana, would prove to be a turning point in the Civil Rights Movement later. According to “Color Blindness, History, and the Law” by Kimberle Crenshaw, Homer Plessy challenged the state under the Fourteenth Amendment under two arguments: first that the state deprived him of equal protection of the law due to irrationality of the classification system and second, that the state was being unconstitutional due to its separation of blacks and whites (Crenshaw 282). Even though the state was in fact truly regarding blacks as second-class citizens, they continued to enforce segregation within the community.

In the Plessy vs Ferguson case, Plessy wanted to be able to have the same opportunities as the white folks do, no matter his ethnicity. Plessy is white and 1/8ths black. He felt that since he’s majority white he would be able to sit in the same transportation as other white people. He was forced to get up from his seat, but he refused. The Supreme Court saw it as “separate, but equal” and Plessy lost. Segregation started to spread throughout the U.S.

In 1896 the U.S. Supreme Court case upheld the constitution of segregation under the “separate but equal” doctrine in the Plessy vs. Ferguson case. This case examined one key issue, was it constitutional to make black people sit in separate cars from white people? In 1890, Homer Plessy broke the law in Louisiana, by sitting in the white people car and he was 1/8 black and 7/8 white. The state of Louisiana passed the Separate Car Act, which required railway companies to have "separate but equal." There was punishment for not following the law which if a person would sit in the wrong car they had to pay $25 fine or go to jail for 20 days. Plessy was asked to move, but he refused and was arrested. When he was sent to jail he argued that Separated car acts violated the 14th amendment. Plessy took his case to the U.S. Supreme Court and it was

The Plessy versus Ferguson case started with an incident where an African American passenger on a train, Homer Plessy, broke Louisiana law by refusing to sit in a Jim Crow car, a separate cart on the train where African Americans had to sit. This

In Spite of the devastating history of segregation in the United States. A lot has changed in the past fifty years since segregation ended. The United States shifted from arresting African Americans for using “white only” facilities to integrated schools all over the country. Influential individuals such as Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr helped pave the way for African Americans to live as equals to along with their white counterparts in the United States of America.

In 1892, Homer Plessy was a passenger in a railroad and who refused to sit in a Jim Crow car. He brought before Judge John H. Ferguson of the Criminal Court from New Orleans, who upheld the state law. The law was challenged in the Supreme Court on grounds that it conflicted with the 13th and 14th Amendments. Although, the Supreme Court had ruled in 1896, Plessy v Ferguson inculcated the “separate but equal” doctrine and passed laws entailing the segregation of races, arguing that Jim Crow laws were constitutional. The case was devastating for African Americans allowing the oppression of an entire race. The Supreme Court system in practice was separate and unequal;