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Essay On Homer Plessy

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Arrest of a Determined Traveler Was separate really equal under the law? In 1896, Homer Plessy forever changed the racial atmosphere in the United States with his arrest for breaking a local Jim Crow law. The legacy of Plessy’s arrest would be felt throughout the 20th Century due to the legalization of segregation in the United States under Plessy v. Ferguson which led to lasting racial tensions. Homer Plessy became known for his involvement in the court case Plessy v. Ferguson. Plessy, who was a 30 year old Creole man from New Orleans, could pass for a white man due to his light skin tone. Under the Louisiana law system, if a person was not fully white you were considered an African-American. On June 7, 1898, Plessy was arrested for sitting in the all white train cars. Louisiana had passed the Separate Car Act in 1890, which made it legal to separate passenger cars by race. The train conductor noticed Plessy on the train car and kindly asked him if he was white. Plessy answered that he was black, and as a result, he was arrested. According to an article entitled, “Another Jim Crow Car Case” in a local newspaper, The Daily Picayune, on June 9, 1892, Homer Plessy violated Louisiana's Separate Car Act in an effort to test the law. Private Detective Cain arrested Plessy on …show more content…

These laws were passed by Southern states during Reconstruction. A few examples of Jim Crow laws included the following: Any African-American found intoxicated would pay a fine or be required to work a sum of five days as a construction worker. No African-American who was not in the service of a white person would be allowed to have any weapons, without any permission. No African-American could exclaim the word of Christ to colored people. If any colored person went against the black code laws, they were punished by being whipped or branded. (“Black Code and Jim Crow Law examples-Black codes and Jim

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265 Words | 2 Pages

The Abbott case however didn't apply to intrastate commerce, travel that is entirely inside the borders of Louisiana, so Martimet and Tourgée began to look for yet another lighter skinned black to test the law. In the end they found Homer Plessy, a member of the citizens' committee that raised the money for the original case. Plessy walked into Press Street Depot on June 7, 1892 and bought a first class ticket to Covington, he boarded the East Louisiana Railroad train. As the train preceded to pull away a conductor approached Plessy and asked if he was a colored man. Plessy told the man he was and was asked to move to the colored car, but Plessy refused to do so.

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548 Words | 3 Pages

Plessy v Fergusen was yet another court case where “separate but equal” was not implementing equality. It showed that they still thought of Black men and women as being less and not deserving the same rights as the White men. Homer Plessy was a free man, that was mainly White and because of a percentage he had of being Black he was treated as a Black man. He tried to sit in the train car of the White men and much like Rosa Parks was asked to go to the back where the Black men belonged in a different car. This case resulted in the Supreme Court defending the decision of the East Louisiana Railroad stating that they weren't violating any law by the ruling they had.

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661 Words | 3 Pages

Plesssy v. Ferguson, Brown v. Board of education both dealt with one of America 's biggest problems segregation. Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Board of Education both delt with segregation, Plessy v. Ferguson was on the Louisiana rail road act, Brown v. Board of Education was on the separate but equal clause, and they were both related. In Plessy v. Ferguson was a dispute between on Louisiana rail road act which made it illegal for whites and blacks to sit together in a rail car. Homer Plessy was a man who severed as the vice president for the Justice, Protective, Educational and Social Club in New Orleans.

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1002 Words | 5 Pages

The petitioner of the case was Homer Plessy, and the respondent of the case was John H. Ferguson. The hearing began on April 13th, 1896, and came to a conclusion on May 18th, 1896. This case was one of the beginning cases for Separate but Equal, and is still remembered to this day. This case all started when Plessy, who was seven eighths white, sat down in the “white” train car and was asked to leave and sit in the “colored” train car.

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416 Words | 2 Pages

To understand the question, focusing on the court cases of Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Board of Education, we must first understand each court case on its own. Plessy v. Ferguson resulted in the year 1896. The case involved the 1890s Louisiana law that basically stated that there were separate railway carriages that were specifically labeled for blacks only and whites only. Plessy v. Ferguson involved Homer Plessy, who was seven-eighths white and one-eighth black and appeared to look like a white man. Plessy took an open seat in a white only railway car.

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1043 Words | 5 Pages

Plessy v Ferguson, 1892, a cornerstone in racial discrimination, dictated that public places, including railway cars, were considered separate but equal. This ushered in the Jim Crow laws that pushed the separate but equal laws at an alarming pace, causing further oppression for the African Americans. Between 1887 and 1950, nearly 5,000 African Americans were lynched all because of the color of their skin. The war may have been over for the states, but in the hearts of the black person, it had only just

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1483 Words | 6 Pages

The new era declared a new level of showing arrogance. The involuntary laws were unreasonable and unfair to anyone of that race. The laws continued for a long while. Plessy vs. Ferguson claimed one of the major cases that broke out May 18, 1896. In Homer's earlier days of growing up, he had endured his father dying and his widowed mother marrying soon after.

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665 Words | 3 Pages

Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 US 537 (1896), a case regarding constitutional law of the US Supreme Court, that was upheld on a seven to one vote. Homer Plessy (1862-1925), an African American passenger on a train, sat in the whites-only train and declined when told to sit in the Jim Crow car, this action broke Louisiana law, The Separate Car Act. Judge John H. Ferguson (1838-1915) of the Criminal Court of New Orleans, the defendant, upheld the law, which was being challenged by the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendment. Ferguson was an American Louisiana judge and lawyer who served in many cases, but is most known for Plessy v. Ferguson.

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699 Words | 3 Pages

Jim Crow was not a person, it was a series of laws that imposed legal segregation between white Americans and African Americans in the American South. It promoting the status “Separate but Equal”, but for the African American community that was not the case. African Americans were continuously ridiculed, and were treated as inferiors. Although slavery was abolished in 1865, the legal segregation of white Americans and African Americans was still a continuing controversial subject and was extended for almost a hundred years (abolished in 1964). Remembering Jim Crow: African Americans Tell About Life in the Segregated South is a series of primary accounts of real people who experienced this era first-hand and was edited by William H.Chafe, Raymond

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667 Words | 3 Pages

Black codes came into the picture after the civil war. Black codes were mainly used to put black people into a position as similar to slavery as possible. Later, Jim Crow laws came into America. They were used as a way to continue oppressing and separating black people. For hundreds of years, there have been countless laws made to justify devaluing black lives and protect the legality of slavery.

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383 Words | 2 Pages

Jim crow laws were laws that separated the colored people from the non colored. The Jim crow laws stripped the colored people of their humanity and placed them below the colored people. In this essay i will be talking about how the treatment towards the colored people was highly unfair and inhumane. The colored people were treated unfairly and specifically judged on their appearance and their appearance only.

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1173 Words | 5 Pages

They were enforced through careful monitoring of birth records and marriage records. What race or color a person was determined what their status was in the United States. If you had the slightest trace of African blood, then you were black. These laws were passed at the height of Eugenics. Eugenics

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1656 Words | 7 Pages

All the three laws were established to govern Black people. Jim Crow Laws were the worst compared to Slave Code and Black Code. These laws are truly racism. Jim Crow Laws were state laws that had the idea of racial segregation between White race and Black race.

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668 Words | 3 Pages

One example of policymaking under "Jim Crow" is the segregation of the military and other federal government workplaces, a policy that was brought about in 1913 under the orders of President Woodrow Wilson. Although "Jim Crow" laws made segregation an absolute legal requirement in many cases, in some places in the U.S., the spirit of racism was enough to keep racial segregation a reality. Even something as simple as traffic was affected by some "Jim Crow" laws, as there were areas in the U.S. where white drivers were always considered to have the right of way while driving, no matter what the circumstance. The Jim Crow laws and system of etiquette were undergirded by violence, real and threatened. Blacks who violated Jim

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791 Words | 4 Pages

Former slaves in the south were given the chance to a new life. Some African Americans decided to stay with their former owners, while other African Americans took advantage of this opportunity in search of owning land, which was not an easy task due to white supremacists and restrictions such as the “black codes”. This code was established by President Johnson’s reconstruction plan and passed by Southern states in 1865- 1866, which required African Americans to have a curfew and compelled them to work in a labor economy based on the debt or very low wages. The “black codes” challenged African American’s freedom when they were recently granted it.3 Not so long after, around 1877, another set of laws known as the “Jim Crow” laws directly undermined the African Americans status by restricting them from voting to segregating them from whites in school and water fountains.4 These laws were a continuation of oppression on African Americans.

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