ipl-logo

Louisiana Railway Accommodations Essay

1534 Words7 Pages

The Louisiana Railway Accommodations
Also called the “Separate Car Act,” “The Louisiana Railway Accommodations Act” was a law that was enacted by legislature in the state of Louisiana in 1890. The Act is remembered as one of the most controversial laws that contributed to the negative aspects of the “gilded age.’ The Act assigned the Whites and African Americans and other people of color separate accommodations in railroads located within Louisiana. However, segregation issues emerged after implementation of the law, which triggered negative reactions from the African Americans. The African Americans realized that the Separate Car Act led them to be treated as inferior citizens. The reactions of the African Americans and other citizens that …show more content…

Upon conviction, such a firm would be liable to pay a fine of between 100 dollars and 500 dollars. Further, the Act stipulated that any officer found to have acted against that law would be liable to pay between 25 dollars and 50 dollars for every offence. However, the act did not apply to nurses of attending to children of another race. Last, the Act stated that it had force over all other laws that contradict it and thus, those other acts were no longer effective. The Separate Car Act is an example of the efforts by states in the late 19th century to return racial discrimination, yet significant attempts to end the discrimination made earlier had borne fruits. Prior to the 1860s, before the end of the Civil War, African Americans in the US were generally treated as inferior citizens by the Whites. After the Civil War, however, slavery was abolished everywhere in the US. New laws were established, which were meant to end the slavery and to guarantee freedom to the freed slaves. The Thirteenth Amendment, which was ultimately enacted in 1865, was meant to end slavery in all states in the US. The Fourteenth Amendment, which was enacted in 1868, was meant to ensure that all citizens of the US, …show more content…

Consequently the whites continued to perceive the other races as being inferior. In fact, that notion exits until today. Despite the fact that there are laws prohibiting racial discrimination, the whites are treated fairly in many contexts while the blacks are discriminated against. A poll conducted by NBC News/SurveyMonkey in 2016 showed that 52 percent of the Americans believed that racial discrimination still existed. Racial discrimination has also been found to be prevalent in job hiring. Overall, the Separate Car Act played a major role in propagating racial discrimination in the US after its enactment. The Effect of the law became profound because of the force it was given by US Supreme Court ruling in 1986. The ruling made it difficult for the African Americans to take cases in court protesting against racial discrimination. Due to the notion that was cultivated by the act among the whites that they are not equal to the other races, it has been difficult to eliminate racial discrimination fully in the US. Thus, the Act contributed to the racial discrimination that exists in the US

Show More
Related
270 Words | 2 Pages

In 1890, the state of Louisiana passed a law (the Separate Car Act) that required separate accommodations for blacks and whites on railroads, including separate railway cars.[2] Concerned, a group of prominent black, creole, and white New Orleans residents formed the Comité des Citoyens (Committee of Citizens) dedicated to repeal the law or fight its effect.[3] They persuaded Homer Plessy, a man of mixed race, to participate in an orchestrated test case. Plessy was born a free man and was an "octoroon" (of seven-eighths European descent and one-eighth African descent). However, under Louisiana law, he was classified as black, and thus required to sit in the "colored" car.[4]

Read More
1112 Words | 5 Pages

A “separate but equal” doctrine became known for segregation being legal as long as the separate facilities were equal. The majority of the South was separated, but the African American facilities were very rarely considered equal as to the Caucasian facilities. The Louisiana state law stated that railroad cars were to be separated by race, and that if a train had more than two passenger cars, they were required to have designated seating for the opposite races. If the train only had one passenger car, they were to put up a curtain to separate the people of separate races. This law had a fine of twenty five dollars or up to twenty nights in jail for

Read More
252 Words | 2 Pages

In the past most people believed it was fine to have segregation. One case that clearly demonstrates this view point was “Plessy vs. Ferguson Court Case.” in this cases, a 1/8 black man named Homer Plessy sat in a segregated seat for “Whites” in a train car. He was then arrested for interfering with the Louisiana law. This case went all

Read More
556 Words | 3 Pages

This legislation came in the way of the Civil Rights Act of 1875. The act, while keeping schools, churches, and cemeteries segregated, gave blacks access to many of the same faculties previously only enjoyed by whites (421). However the bill was declared unconstitutional in 1883 and both Democrats and most Republicans were at peace with the decision; they cited the old rhetoric of social equality and a free labor society didn’t need civil rights protections

Read More
454 Words | 2 Pages

Many African-Americans were treated unequally after the Civil War. In source 1, the text states that racial tensions across the country were extremely high after the Civil War, and African Americans continued to deal with oppression (source 1, paragraph 1). This evidence proves that even though African Americans were no longer slaves after the Civil War, they still were being treated unfair. With that in mind, many African Americans had experienced horrible times during the 1800s just because of the color of their skin. According to source 1, back in the 1800s, there were “whites only train cars” and “blacks only train cars”, and the cars were not the same quality (source 1, paragraph 5).

Read More
993 Words | 4 Pages

Constitution, following the end of the Civil War. It is evident that Lincoln desired the restoration of national unity, as well as the assurance of equal liberties to all people. Thus, on January 31, 1865, Congress ratified the Thirteen Amendment, which formally abolished slavery in the United States. Soon thereafter, Congress sanctioned the Fourteenth Amendment in July of 1868, defining the civil liberties and rights of all individuals in the United States. As written in Document one, the Fourteenth Amendment declared, “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

Read More
1329 Words | 6 Pages

The ruling thus lent high judicial support to racial and ethnic discrimination and led to wider spread of the segregation between Whites and Blacks in the Southern United States. The great oppressive consequence from this was discrimination against African American minority from the socio-political opportunity to share the same facilities with the mainstream Whites, which in most of the cases the separate facilities for African Americans were inferior to those for Whites in actuality. The doctrine of “separate but equal” hence encourages two-tiered pluralism in U.S. as it privileged the non-Hispanic Whites over other racial and ethnic minority

Read More
1634 Words | 7 Pages

Plessy argued that the concept of the “Separate Car Act” violates the 14th Amendment because the amendment states that laws do not have the power to take away or jeopardize any of the citizens’ natural rights (PBS.org). Plessy lost the case when the court claimed that the 14th Amendment only protects legal and political equality among all people, but not social equality; this means the 14th Amendment is not responsible for assuring that people are viewed equally in society or that they are receiving equal services or goods, which confirms the “Separate but Equal” concept as constitutional (Cornell University Law

Read More
199 Words | 1 Pages

As current time and social status are being challenged and pushed, the Jim Crow Laws were implemented. These state and local laws were just legislated this year, 1877. New implemented laws mandate segregation in all public facilities, with a “separate but equal” status for African Americans. This may lead to treatment and accommodations that are inferior to those provided to white Americans, systematizing a number of economic, educational, and social disadvantages.

Read More
904 Words | 4 Pages

In the 1800s, both African Americans and Mexican Americans faced similar treatments from whites. One of the main things that both groups had to face was racial discrimination mainly because they both were not viewed as racially equal by most whites. For example, the U.S. court validated legislations that institutionalized race separations between blacks and whites, such as the Jim Crow Laws. The Plessy v. Ferguson was a Supreme Court Case that gave states the right to pass laws allowing or required racial segregation in public and private institutions like schools and public transportation. The laws not only affected black people, but it also affected Mexicans.

Read More
359 Words | 2 Pages

In the 1800’s, African Americans were affected by the Jim Crow Laws in the South because of the discrimination. The Jim Crow Laws were a set of strict rules preventing blacks from having the same privileges as whites. These laws affected blacks and treated them differently because of the color of their skin. From having different ways of transportation for African Americans, to not letting them use the same restroom, the Jim Crow Laws had a tremendous impact across America. Throughout my research, I learned how the blacks were affected after the Jim Crow Laws were passed.

Read More
577 Words | 3 Pages

Once they returned, most of their jobs that they had in factories and mills had been taken by the African Americans. However, the African Americans that had fought in the war and had recently come home were denied basic rights. Hundreds of people died in the “Red Summer”. Some from lynching, race riots, beaten, tortured and so much more. The racial violence was getting out of hand and the African Americans weren’t going to take it anymore.

Read More
597 Words | 3 Pages

Accordingly, “ The Committee of Citizens, convinced Plessy to intentionally buy a ticket for a whites only car.” (Source 1). Thus, people would do their own stuff and be separated from other races. Given these points, segregation took 6 decades to become unconstitutional, which caused changes in the whole

Read More
2041 Words | 9 Pages

-In fact, petitioner's act would not have been criminal at common law, in almost all the other states of the Union, in England, or in the Commonwealth countries, except South Africa where similar law is directed solely at Natives.” (LOUIS H. POLLAK CONSTANCE BAKER MOTLEY Of Counsel, 1960) This source could be biased as it the court reporter was white, but it is most likely reliable as other evidence supports it. Therefore, the source is also useful as it provides information that corroborates with other sources. A government official website, highlights Robert Kennedy petition that banned segregation, and subsequently decreed that bus carriers and terminals serving interstate travel had to be integrated.

Read More
537 Words | 3 Pages

In 1891, a group of concerned young black men of New Orleans immediately formed the “Citizens’ Committee to Test the Constitutionality of the Separate Car Law.” They raised money and engaged Albion W. Tourgée, a prominent Radical Republican author and politician, as their lawyer. The poeple involved in this case are the young concerned black men the us government and the states. On May 15, 1892, the Louisiana State Supreme Court decided in favor of the Pullman Company’s claim that the Separate Car Law was unconstitutional. The importance of this case is that In 1883, the Supreme Court finally ruled that the 14th Amendment did not give Congress authority to prevent discrimination by private individuals(Plessy v.

Read More

More about Louisiana Railway Accommodations Essay

Related Topics

Open Document