Essay On Plessy V. Ferguson Case Of 1896

“Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens.” Said Justice John Marshall Harlan in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson. (“Oyez, Oyez, Oh Yay!”) In 1890 Louisiana surprisingly got the ability to pass a law called the Separate Car Act that said that all railroad companies that carried passengers must provide separate but equal services for both white and non-white passengers. (“Landmark Cases”) The penalty for sitting in a white-designated railroad car when you were not of that ethnicity was a fine of twenty-five dollars or twenty days in jail. (“Landmark Cases”) There was a doctrine passed that everything was “separate but equal.” This doctrine was false however because in almost all situations the

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 Plessy vs. Ferguson case of 1892 was the case that was overturned by the Brown vs. Board of Education ruling of 1984. This case was trying to challenge the Louisiana 's Separate Car Act, a law that made railroads in Louisiana provide “equal but separate accommodations” for patrons of different races. A multiracial man name named Homer Plessy

After the Civil War, following the Compromise of 1877 and the end of Reconstruction, the protection for the rights of African American ended if there was any. Southern States had moved to impose a system of segregation on nearly all areas of life. New laws that required segregation that stirred “separate but equal” doctrine that disenfranchise African Americans for almost six decades. It is hard in this days and age to be able to imagine segregation as a law, but the remnants just change form and name. A petition file on June 7, 1892, in the supreme court Louisiana by a local shoemaker named Homer Plessy against Honorable judge John H. Ferguson. His filling set a test case to challenge Separate Car Act that prompt Plessy v. Ferguson case perhaps one of the most noticeable actions to nullify “separate but equal” doctrine.

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.

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." Brown v. The Board of Education is the reason for diversity in schools. These cases are very important to our constitution and to the people being governed by the constitution because it decided the fate of our nation and of our people. They show the degree of federalism and how much attention the government devoted to it. The amendments in the constitution do not apply to a simple race nor ethnicity. Throughout history laws have been made and destroyed at the cost of colored

Board of Education decision was delivered in 1954. Oliver L. Brown first filed a suit against the Topeka Board of Education in 1951. He was upset because he attempted to enroll his daughter, Linda, at Sumner Elementary School, which was a white school, because it was only seven blocks away. However, because of the segregation laws in the South that required segregation in all public facilities, including schools, Linda Brown was forced to attend Monroe Elementary School. This school was four miles away from her home and she had to walk for an hour and twenty minutes before she reached her school (Urofsky 276). Oliver went to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) for help after Sumner Elementary turned him away. The NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund looked at this case and felt that they were ready to challenge legalized segregation. They reached the Supreme Court in 1953. The Supreme Court Justices finally delivered their decision on May 17, 1954 (Urofsky 281).

Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 US 537 (1896) was a case in which Homer Plessy (1862-1925) challenged the Supreme Court. Plessy was an African American who had sat in the whites only car on a train. When he was told to go to the Jim Crow car he refused, which broke one of Louisiana's laws, the Separate Car Act. John H. Ferguson (1838-1915) was the judge of the Criminal Court of New Orleans. The defendant was trying to uphold the law that was being backed by the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendment. Ferguson was an American Louisiana judge/lawyer who served in a lot of cases, but Plessy v. Ferguson was his most well known case.

When this case was taken to state level, it sadly lost the case. They referred to the Plessy vs. Ferguson case. That case had allowed had allowed the separation between black and white. The Plessy Vs. Ferguson case stated that the separation was not violating any law or amendment. The state was allowing the separation because they said “It will better preparing the children for when they get later treated like this when there grown up." During this time, African American weren't allowed to eat in the same restaurants, drink from the same water fountains, or even ride in the same car train as white people. After losing the state case, Oliver and the NAACP didn't stop there. They took it to the next level. Oliver Brown and the NAACP took the

Throughout the first half of the Twentieth Century, American statutes and judicial precedents operated to preserve advantages of the white citizens of the country. In 1954 the Supreme Court, made a profound decision in Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, which brought about a fundamental change in the legal and racial organization of American society. Mr. Oliver L. Brown’s attorneys convinced the justices to overturn the precedent in Plessy v. Ferguson, in order to permit Mr. Brown’s daughter Linda to attend a white elementary school that was seven blocks from her home instead of going ten blocks to get on a bus to go to a segregated elementary school. This unanimous decision swept aside the legal principle of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

Plessy V. John H. Ferguson dealing with the separation of black and white residents. In 1980 the state of Louisiana passed a law called “ The Separate Car Act” which mandated separate public accommodations for black and whites on railroads. On July 7, 1982 a man named Homer Plessy purchased a railroad ticket and boarded the “whites-only” section of the railroad. Plessy was immediately told to flee the “whites-only” area and enter “black-only” area. Plessy refused and was arrested for violating the Separate Car Act. Interesting enough, Homer Plessy was 7/8th European descent and 1/8th African descent but was considered black. Plessy was then placed into trial in which his lawyers argued the state denied him his rights under the fourteenth amendment which provided equal treatment under the law. Plessy lost every court in Louisiana before appealing to the Supreme Court. In a 7-1 decision, the court decided as long as facilities are equal, their separation satisfied the fourteenth amendment “Separate But Equal”. This was a huge milestone for black citizens in the United States although they later realized it didn’t seem as nice as it did on paper. This was was later overturned by Oliver Brown, et al. v. Board of Education of Topeka, et al in the year 1965 and was mandated unconstitutional for the reason that black facilities weren’t equal compared to white

7 out of 8 judges in the Plessy vs. Ferguson case said that segregation was constitutional. The Supreme Court Case between Homer Adolf Plessy and John Howard Ferguson. The object of the case was to try to decide whether or not segregation was constitutional. Mr. Plessy was 30 years old when the case started. He was the prosecutor in the case. The case was originally called “Plessy v. The State of Louisiana”. Homer Adolf Plessy was a determined man who worked hard at abolishing segregation base on your race and would do anything, including getting arrested, to get the message out that segregation was a bad thing, and it needed to come to an end.

were created. A Jim Crow law was any law that enforced racial segregation in the

The small southern state of Louisiana enacted the Separate Car Act in 1890. The law required separate train cars for whites and blacks and the condition they were equal. This was not such an unusual law for the 1890’s though some Northern states even had similar laws. The exact accounts of the event seem to differ from the newspapers to the actual arrest record. But Homer Plessy was hired to purchase a ticket in violation of the law. The hired detective arrested Plessy before he even entered the car, and that is collaborated by to the arrest record too. The Daily Picayune reported on the arrest on June 7, 1892 and illustrated Plessy as seated in the car and refusing to move despite several attempts. Either way it made it to the Supreme Court with little resistance. The Supreme Court had already essentially annulled any federal power to guard against racial discrimination. So the ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) was really not out of character for a very conservative Court. With only one dissenting Justice the Court laid down the approval of “separate but equal.” And the majorities’ opinion expressed favorable comments to the Southern law

Ferguson case prove otherwise. Harlan concludes that these are several of the reasons he does not agree with the court decision. Overall, Harlan stays clear of biases because he includes information about rights for both races and does not defend one single side. However, there are potential biases because he did not directly include the court decision or Louisiana Separate Car Act in his dissent. It is also is unclear what Judge Harlan’s background is and what his opinions could have been before the specific case. In this document, it is obvious that the time period was facing a time of segregation in the country. The Louisiana Separate Car Act that is part of the Plessy vs. Ferguson case shows the physical separation between the races. During this time period, it was typical for whites and non-whites to have separate public resources because the Redeemers hoped to undo the Radical Reconstruction progress in African American and non-white rights. In addition, non-whites were disrespected and dehumanized, as shown by Harlan’s mention of the Louisiana Separate Car Act dismissal of the fact that whites could not sit with a non-white group of people.