Allison Krug
English II
Ms. Cuddihy
January 24th, 2015 Plessy vs. Ferguson It might be hard to imagine but in 1896 people who sat in the wrong part of the passenger train were fined and/or jailed. Plessy vs. Ferguson helped pave the way for many anti racial discrimination laws. This Supreme Court decision helped to uphold the Statue of Louisiana acts of 1890, which required passenger trains to provide “separate but equal” accommodations for whites and colored races on its railroads which changed the rights to make separate facilities for both races to be constitutional as long as they were equal. This truly changed the Civil Rights Era forever. Plessy vs. Ferguson a case that tested the “separate but equal” philosophy, had a negative impact on America. Plessy vs. Ferguson was a famous case that took action in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1896 just after President Abraham Lincoln issued the “Emancipation Proclamation” in 1863 (“Emancipation Proclamation Article”) to free all slaves. Homer Plessy and John Ferguson were the main key players in the case. African American passenger Homer Plessy refused to sit in a Jim Crow car, breaking a Louisiana law and was fined for sitting in the wrong seat/section of the train. This greatly impacted today’s society.
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Jim Crow laws are local and state laws restricting access to public facilities for African Americans. A good example of this would be a colored person trying to enter a white’s public theatre, sporting event or other places or a white person trying to enter a colored person’s public facilities. The “Separate but Equal Doctrine was a doctrine specifying that colored and white people were not allowed to integrate or get together with each other or going into each other’s public facilities. This lead to Brown vs. Board of Education negatively impacting Plessy vs.