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. What is Segregation
In 1896 the United States Supreme Court ruled that it was constitutionally legal to segregate African Americans with their white counterparts. In the court case of Plessy v. Ferguson an African American man in Louisiana named Homer Plessy refused to follow the mandated Jim Crow laws which enforced that African Americans have to sit in a designated area when riding on a train. Plessy argued that his fourteenth amendment right was violated equal-protection clause, which “prohibits the states from denying “equal protection of the laws” to any person within their jurisdictions”(Duignan, 2016). However, when Plessy’s case moved to the Supreme Court they ruled“ the object of the Fourteenth Amendment was to create "absolute equality of the two races before the law," such equality extended only so far as political and civil rights (e.g., voting and serving on juries), not "social rights" (e.g., sitting in a railway car one chooses) (McBride, n.d. ). As a result, Plessy v. Ferguson
In 1892, the Plessy v. Ferguson case had emerged from a conflict from Louisiana’s Separate Car Act. The law required that railroads have “separate but equal accommodations,” prohibiting African American and White passengers from entering besides the one they were assigned to based on race. Homer Plessy, a seven-eighths White and one-eighth African American bought a rail travel ticket in Louisiana for the White car and took a seat. He was later told to move to the African American car, after refusing to move he was arrested and charged for not complying with the Separate Car Act.
Plessy V. Ferguson was a court case that took place in 1896 in New Orleans. This case was held due to an incident in which African American train passenger Homer Plessy refused to sit in a Jim Crow Car where at the time in Louisiana, all colored people had to by law, which required separation of both whites and colored people. This action resulted in Plessy’s arrest in 1890. Even though Plessy argued that this violated his constitutional rights, the court ruled that a state law that “states merely a legal distinction “between those that are white and colored did not conflict with the 13th and 14th amendments. Restrictive legislation bases on race continued following the Plessy decision, its reasoning was not overturned until Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka in 1954.
The Plessy v Ferguson case was a U.S. Supreme Case in 1896 that upheld the constitution of segregation. This case started when Homer Plessy refused to sit in a Jim Crow Car therefore breaking a law in Louisiana in the year 1892. He had bought a first class ticket and then took his seat in a white-only car. Homer Plessy was arrested and imprisoned immediately. In the court Plessy argued that his Constitutional rights were violated, and he filed a petition against John H. Ferguson. Plessy argued that the segregation law violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth and Thirteenth amendment. The Fourteenth Amendment keeps states from denying equal protection of the laws to every person and the Thirteenth Amendment banned slavery. The court denied Plessy’s petition and said that the Thirteenth Amendment only had to deal with slavery and nothing else.
For much of the ninety years preceding the Brown case, race relations in the U.S. had been dominated by racial segregation. This policy had been endorsed in 1896 by the United States Supreme Court case of Plessy v. Ferguson, which held that as long as the separate facilities for the separate races were "equal," segregation did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment ("no State shall... deny to any person... the equal protection of the laws.")
In June of 1896 the Plessy v. Ferguson set the precedent for separate but equal. Homer Plessy an African American, who was a passenger in a train, did not sit in a Jim Crow car. This was a clear violation of the Louisiana law because he had not sat in the designated area of the train. Although, Homer Plessy said that his rights were being violated and it was unconstitutional to make him sit in a Jim Crow car. Homer Plessy’s case was seen by John H. Ferguson, an American lawyer and an American judge from Louisiana, the courts ruled,”... that a state law that “implies merely a legal distinction” between whites and blacks did not conflict with the 13th and14th amendments”(Plessy v. Ferguson). The court tried to avert talk of the 14 amendment, which allows citizens
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.
Ferguson( 1896); one of the most well known civil right cases regarding " equal but separate laws" in relation to public seating. In 1896 Homer Plessy an African American was denied the right to be seated in a white only section. The Supreme court denied Congress the authority to prevent unequal privileges to restraints and inns. Following this statement, the Supreme Court upheld a Louisiana state law that allowed for, "equal but separate accommodations for the white and colored races" ( Supreme Court ). Consequently, transportation segregation was not unconstitutional but, “implies merely a legal distinction” (John A. Garraty). Nonetheless segregation in America was then more acceptable than before. Plessy vs. Ferguson, Judgement, Decided May 18, 1896; Records of the Supreme Court of the United States; Record Group 267; Plessy v. Ferguson, 163, #15248, National
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After further research on each parts of the reconstruction, I have concluded that the African Americans did not reach full citizenship for many reasons, but three stood out: Black codes, Sharecropping and Poll taxes. First of all, the Black codes served three purposes and most codes called for the segregation of blacks and whites in public places. The purposes were to limit the rights of freedmen, help planters find workers to replace their slaves and to keep freedmen at the bottom of the social order in the South. Although this helped them on their way it also tore them down. Segregation came with the codes, Black kids had no public school to go to, African Americans right to vote or serve on juries was denied, and work was scarce. Therefore
Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896 was an U.S. Supreme Court case supported segregation under the “separate but equal” policy. It came from an 1892 incident in which an African-American train passenger, Homer Plessy, refused to sit in a Jim Crow car. At the time this was a Louisiana law he was breaking. Dismissing Plessy’s argument that his constitutional rights were violated, the Court came to the conclusion that a state law that “implies merely a legal distinction” between whites and blacks did not clash with the 13th and14th
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