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Civil Rights Movement: The Plessy Vs. Ferguson Case

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Before the civil rights movement was the separation of the race white and black within schools, public facilities, and transportation. The whites above blacks. The civil rights movement started the change. It was the beginning of integration and end of segregation. The civil rights movements started around late 1950s all through 1970s. This movement was very important to our history. In 1896 separate but equal was legal. This was called the Plessy vs. Ferguson case. This case happened in the post civil war area. Segregation of public facilities was widely practiced in the South. The separate facilities for Black Americans in the south were were usually of poor quality. The way this all started was that, in 1892, Homer Plessy took a seat in a white only train car in Louisiana. He refused to move to the train car reserved for black people. He challenged the one drop rule in Louisiana, which said that even one drop of negro blood was to be considered a negro. He lost and separate but equal places were made for whites and blacks The places were not really equal …show more content…

Board of Education happened. This was impactful because it changed things for blacks and made things more equal. “Brown v. Board of Education (1954), now acknowledged as one of the greatest Supreme Court decisions of the 20th century, unanimously held that the racial segregation of children in public schools violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment,” (pbs.org). This case was the push end segregation in education. Linda Brown wanted to go to the white school because it was better than her school, but the law then said she couldn’t. The decision the court made was that separate places were not equal so they said she could go to the white school. “In the case arising from Delaware, the Supreme Court of Delaware ruled that the African American students had to be admitted to the white public schools because of their higher quality facilities,”

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WaiTo Wong Polsc 1 Prof. Uranga 8/7/2014 Was Brown v Board decided correctly? Back in 1950s', African American children were rejected admission to normal public schools which are attended by white children, under laws requiring or allowing segregation towards to the races. Linda Brown who is the main character in this event, she was born in Topeka, Kansas. Despite the fact she grew up in a ethnically diverse neighborhood, she was still forced to go to a school which need an hour time to reach instead of going to a school which was four blocks away from her house. Back at that time Topeka's schools are being segregated by races.

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The Board of Education wanted segregated elementary schools. Other schools were non segregated. The appellants felt that the Board violated the rights given by the Constitution. They sued the board saying that the system didn’t give Linda Brown the equal protection of the rights given by the fourteenth amendment. The decision was unanimous in favor of Brown.

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Near the end of the Reconstruction Era, laws and amendments were passed to give African American’s rights. The Civil Rights Act of 1875 was passed to forbid racial discrimination in public areas. However, Congress ended up repealing the law saying that it was unconstitutional. As a result, more laws dealing with segregation were passed. Plessy v. Ferguson was an important landmark court case because it paved way for African American civil rights movements that challenged the laws under “separate but equal.”

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In the early 1950s, racial segregation was pervasive in many aspects of American life, particularly in the southern states. Public schools were no exception, with the doctrine of "separate but equal," established in the 1896 Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson, serving as the legal basis for racial segregation in education and other public facilities. This doctrine allowed for racially segregated facilities as long as they were deemed to be equal in quality, though in practice, facilities for African Americans were often inferior. Oliver Brown, a resident of Topeka, Kansas, became a central figure in the fight against segregation when he attempted to enroll his daughter, Linda Brown, in a nearby all-white elementary school. However, Linda was denied admission due to her race, as Topeka's schools were segregated by law.

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For nearly a century, the United States was occupied by the racial segregation of black and white people. The constitutionality of this “separation of humans into racial or other ethnic groups in daily life” had not been decided until a deliberate provocation to the law was made. The goal of this test was to have a mulatto, someone of mixed blood, defy the segregated train car law and raise a dispute on the fairness of being categorized as colored or not. This test went down in history as Plessy v. Ferguson, a planned challenge to the law during a period ruled by Jim Crow laws and the idea of “separate but equal” without equality for African Americans. This challenge forced the Supreme Court to rule on the constitutionality of segregation, and in result of the case, caused the nation to have split opinions of support and

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Racial segregation was common and widely acceptable up through the mid-1900s. Everything from jobs to schools to drinking fountains were separated by race. The civil rights movement sought to change that. It was a nationwide social movement set on ending racism and bringing about equal treatment. The Brown vs. Board of Education was an important landmark in the civil rights movement because of its ripple effect.

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The Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education paved the way for a new level of opportunity for others that followed by making segregation in schools illegal, providing better conditions in the classroom, and providing African American students with more opportunities for the future. In the summer of 1950, 13 African Americans parents tried to enroll their children in an all-white school for the upcoming year. They were of course denied, being that at the time schools were segregated. One particular child really stood out in this case, his name was Linda Brown. Brown had to travel a large distance to attend Monroe Elementary--one of the four black elementaries in the town.

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The supreme court case of Plessy v Ferguson encouraged the Civil Rights to occur because black people wanted to have the experience of being served equally. In 1892 Homer Plessy, a 1/8th black 7/8th white man, was jailed for sitting in a railroad car that was designated only for whites, however in court he stated that the state law was unconstitutional. John Ferguson a Criminal District Judge ruled against him and consequently the case was taken to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court upheld the Louisiana law requiring restaurants, hotels,

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o Douglas went to court and he got sent to the supreme court. William tried to get the whites and blacks to have the same rights.

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These actions extended until 1964 when a colored man by the name of Oliver Brown (Brown V.Board of Education) went to court because his daughter had to walk miles and miles to get to the closest colored school. “The Plessy v. Ferguson decision that legalized the practices of “separate but equal”. In the Plessy decision, the

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The original case was tried in a district court and was defeated on the grounds that the black schools and white schools were sufficiently equal and therefore segregated schooling in the district was protected under the Plessy decision. He then had to take his case to the Supreme court, in which they then called it Brown vs. Board of Education. Brown overturned the Plessy decision which was "separate but equal". During this case there was segregation for adults and children as

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The south raging about segregation and “separate but equal” slogan used to make the segregated group feel as if there is no wrong doing, or no violations of their civil rights. All of the controversy started over the railroad cars that existed before segregation was brought to the forefront. Meanwhile, in New Orleans there was a case pushing for a challenge, known as Plessy v. Ferguson. Homer Plessy, an African American man, refused to move from a white only car to a colored car. In all disappointment the case was rule eight to one in Supreme Court.

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Supreme Court decision in Brown V. Board of Education. During this time period schools in the United States are segregated, but the courts ruled that black and white students are separate but equal. Williams stated that many of the southern governor's rejected that white and African Americans students could not go to school together. This being said, if segregation continued in schools across America then the government would then start to take away public school funding. This was the breakthrough that America needed because African Americans had the right to go to school with white kids.

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All the parents' requests were refused, including that of Oliver Brown. He was told that his daughter, Linda Brown, could not attend the nearby white school and instead would have to enroll her in an African American school far from her home (Duignan 2024). In 1951, Linda Brown’s father and several parents from her school filed a suit against the Board of Education of the City of Topeka, Kansas. The District Court based its decision on the precedent case of Plessy v. Ferguson, stating "separate but equal," meaning that although they were segregated, the schools were equal. The families disagreed and appealed, arguing that the different schools were not equal and that this violated the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause (Cornell Law, n.d.).

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This led to “white only” and “no blacks allowed” signs posted every where and on everything. Nothing was changing for the better, instead, simply ignoring the fact that the white race was still treating the black race unfairly after they had been given their rights. It was not until that one family was tired of their little girl walking far and unsafe distances to her “black only” school because she was not allowed to go the white school a couple blocks away. This sparked the Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas court trial in 1954. This trial was a voice that finally rose from the silence and spoke for every black person fighting for their rights.

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