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Essay On Plessy Vs Ferguson

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Unit One Essay Two landmark cases, one called “Plessy versus Ferguson” the other, “Brown versus Board of Education” changed the world. Around the 1850s, black people were treated as minorities and did not have the same rights as the whites. They had to go to separate schools and sit in different sections on busses or trains. Both cases were taken to the United States Supreme Court and was decided by the nine justices. Having this segregation caused fights, disagreements, and more cases brought into court because if race, but it was the start of a new world. The case of Plessy versus Ferguson started around the 1890s when the Separate Car Act statute was passed in Louisiana. This act stated that any companies carrying people in Louisiana must have separate but equal areas for the whites and blacks. Homer Plessy, in 1992, was one-eight black and purchased a ticket for first class and, sat in the white only area. He was then arrested for violating the new Separate Car Act and was taken to jail. Plessy argued that the Separate Car Act went against the thirteenth and fourteenth amendment of our constitution. Plessy’s case lost twice and was then taken to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court decided, seven to one decision, that they were in favor of …show more content…

Both cases violated the fourteenth amendment to the constitution. The fourteenth amendment gives everyone equal protection of the law. Having to sit in separate sections on a train, and attend different schools to receive different educations violated this amendment. Racial segregation was all that was known at this point of time. Segregation was taught to the new generations of kids. What makes both of these cases significant to history is how it changed the way society thinks. It was said that they were not given “equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment” (Summary of the Decision, Landmark

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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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997 Words | 4 Pages

John H. Ferguson was the judge on the case and decided to uphold the state law. The law was challenged in the supreme court on grounds that it conflicted with the the 13th and the 14th amendments. By a seven to one majority vote, the controversial “separate but equal” doctrine. It was the the seminal post-Reconstruction Supreme court decision that judicially validated state sponsored segregation in public facilities. In a misguided decision, the court ruled that blacks and whites could be separated in public life if the accommodations were equal.

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1024 Words | 5 Pages

The decision of this case provided constitutional sanction until overruled by the Brown v. Board of Education case. This case introduced the “Separate but Equal” Act. The Plessy v. Ferguson case legalized segregation in public accommodations, education, and

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416 Words | 2 Pages

He was soon arrested for violating the 1890 law. When Plessy was convicted of violating the 1890 law during his trial, he soon filed a petition against the judge, John H. Ferguson. Ferguson

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1549 Words | 7 Pages

Plessy V. Ferguson. In 1890, Louisiana passed the Separate Car Act, which required whites and blacks to ride in separate train cars. In 1892, Homer Plessy was arrested for sitting in a “whites only” car. Plessy filed a lawsuit declaring that his constitutional rights had been violated. However, the US Supreme Court ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson that separate accommodations were constitutional as long as they were equal.

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769 Words | 4 Pages

The case Plessy v. Ferguson set many precedents. One of the precedents was separate but equal. This set the standard for all the cases similar so

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552 Words | 3 Pages

The officer of the arrest claimed that Plessy was guilty of violating Louisiana’s state statute that required railroad companies to provide equal but separate passenger cars for different races in which prohibited any person to occupy any passenger coach not assigned to their race.

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688 Words | 3 Pages

Plessy vs. Ferguson, one of the bigger cases in the turning point for rights, gave the black community a big boost forward. There was a man named Homer Adoph Plessy that had a problem with the way things were going at the time and he wanted equal rights. But there was another man named John Ferguson who thought that everything was just skippy. They went to court to settle their quarrel.

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569 Words | 3 Pages

In 1896, the Plessy v. Ferguson became of. The first reason, an incident in which African American passenger Homer Plessy refused to sit in a car for blacks. Then, he was brought before John Ferguson state law. Later, the Court then avoided discussion of the protection granted by the clause in the 14th Amendment. Also, It was a 7-1 vote but the argument was false because of the “assumption that the enforced separation of the two races stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority”.

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1551 Words | 7 Pages

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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946 Words | 4 Pages

On May 18, 1896, the Supreme Court ruled in the Plessy vs. Ferguson law case that separate-but-equal facilities on trains were constitutional.” It is deplorable that such laws were created by Southern Republics to ensure that African Americans would maintain to be treated inferior to them. This includes making segregation a law. Blacks and whites could no longer dine together, sit on the bus together, get an education together,

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555 Words | 3 Pages

Plessy was arrested and then tried before Judge Ferguson in a New Orleans court. Ferguson upheld the state law that legalized “equal but separate accommodations for the white and colored races” on trains (Plessy v. Ferguson- History). Plessy argued that this violated his 13th and 14th amendment rights and the case was taken to the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1896, the Supreme Court decided in a 7-1 vote that the state-imposed segregation law was in fact constitutional and that it didn’t violate the equal protection laws of the 14th Amendment (Plessy v. Ferguson- Oyez).

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451 Words | 2 Pages

“What can more certainly arouse race hate, what more certainly create and perpetuate a feeling of distrust between these races, than state enactments which, in fact, proceed on the ground that colored citizens are so inferior and degraded that they cannot be allowed to sit in public coaches occupied by white citizens?”- John Marshall Harlan. On May 18, 1896, the Supreme court passed the separate but equal act on a vote of 7-1. This allowed separate facilities to be made for whites and blacks. This was the result of the Plessy vs Ferguson case, where a man was forced out of a whites-only car because he had African descent. The Supreme court couldn’t find any differences in the train cars, yet separate facilities for blacks had a decrease in quality.

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420 Words | 2 Pages

Brown Vs. Board of education Brown vs board of education occured in 1954, that was a court case dealing with racial segregation of students in public schools. This was a big part of civil rights movement to help establish the separate but equal in education. In 1896 Plessy vs Ferguson is what set the separation of colored and whites in all public places as long as everything was equal in the facilities. The law separated colored and whites from riding the same busses and attending the same schools known as jim crow laws that was suppose to stand for six decades.

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