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Palmer V. Ferguson Case Brief

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In Palmer v. Thompson, 391 F.2d 324 (5th Cir. Miss. 1967), twelve Black American citizens living in Jackson, Mississippi, filed a suit on behalf of themselves and fellow Black American citizens seeking an injunction against the Mayor and Commissioners of Jackson, its Police Chief, and its Director of Recreation, alleging discriminatory conduct in the operation of the city’s swimming pools and jails. In 1963 the “City of Jackson closed all swimming pools which it owned and operated. From that time forward “no municipal swimming facilities were opened to any citizen of either race. And the city acknowledged that it did not intend to reopen or operate any of the swimming facilities on an integrated basis. The city contended that the racial integration of the pools would endanger personal safety of all citizens and would pose a problem for officials to maintain law and order. Additionally, the City of Jackson acknowledged having separate city jail facilities and accommodations for white and Black American prisoners, holding that the facilities were of equal quality but that the separation was …show more content…

Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (U.S. 1896) gave states the legal right to require persons of different races to use separate but equal segregated facilities. But that ruling was struck down in the landmark case of Brown v. Bd. of Educ., 347 U.S. 483 (U.S. 1954), In that case the court held that separate but equal public schools based on race is a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and is unconstitutional. In upholding that decision, Cooper v. Aaron held that state governments must comply with Supreme Court rulings and court orders based on the its interpretation of the

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Notаbly absent from the opinion, as it was in Plessy, is any citаtion to a Supreme Court cаse that considered whether the prаctice of segregating schools was a violation of the Fourteenth Аmendment. It was an open question for the Court. The Court аdmitted that the precedent to which it cited involved discriminаtion between whites and blacks rаther thаn other rаces. However, the Court found no аppreciable difference here—"the decision is within the discretion of the state in regulating its public schools, and does not conflict with the Fourteenth Аmendment."

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Laws were passed that denied African-Americans their right to vote, excluded them from using public transportation, excluded them from playing sports or attending sporting events, and even prevented them from playing checkers with Whites. The decision divided American society in two which in turn hindered the struggle for equal rights by doing so. The Plessy v Ferguson decision set back racial relations, increased oppression rates within the many African-American communities, and subsequently authorized more than fifty years worth of “legal”

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The Court declined his argument. The Court determined that the segregated schools were considerably equal enough under the Plessy doctrine. It wasn 't until the mid twentieth century when Brown v Board of Education came into play that Plessy’s argument was given the okay by the constitution. The Court tried to use Plessy v. Ferguson to deny the argument that Oliver Brown was giving during the Brown v. Board of Education case. Once the Courts decided that separating children by race could have an overall affect on the black children 's ability to learn.

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