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Plessy Vs. Ferguson: Supreme Court Case

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Plessy v. Ferguson is a Supreme Court case that legalized segregation,”separate but equal”. The Supreme Court said that “separate but equal” did not violate the 14th Amendment.This all happened because an African American man sat in a whites only train car and refused to move. He sued and said that this violated his constitutional right. Case: In 1892 Homer Plessy took a seat in the “whites only” car of the train and refused to move. He was arrested,tried, and convicted in the district court of New Orleans. For breaking Louisiana's segregation law. Plessy appeared,claiming that he was denied equal protection under the law. The supreme court handed down the decision on May 18,1896. Ruling: the court ruled that separate but equal facilities
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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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On June 7th, 1892, Homer Plessy boarded a Louisiana train with a first class ticket. Plessy was one-eighth black, and was therefore an easily white-passing man. When he seated himself in the whites-only carriage of the train, he was soon forcibly removed and placed under arrest. The reason for his imprisonment was for ‘violating an act of the General Assembly of the State,’ as specified in the Supreme Court’s transcript of the Plessy v. Ferguson case. At the time, a law was in place in the state of Louisiana dictating that people of color and whites must sit in separate train carriages.

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Ferguson case was about how the slaves had to use a separate door, restroom, hotels, hospital and other public services to serve equal but separate accommodations for African Americans. This doctrine was making a step toward equality but yet it was still unfair that the Africans couldn't eat or do anything with the white people. In the sole dissent, Justice John Marshall Harlan -- a former slaveowner -- said the ruling would "stimulate aggressions, more or less brutal, upon the admitted rights of colored citizens.” ( full citation-Plessy vs. Ferguson, Judgement, Decided May 18, 1896; Records of the Supreme Court of the United States; Record Group 267; Plessy v. Ferguson, 163, #15248, National

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The predictions made by Justice Harlan were accurate, as he thoroughly predicted on what the ruling entailed. The ruling allowed for the ignorance of the amendments that protect the rights of colored citizens and allowed them to stay as citizens. In the Plessy v. Ferguson case, the ruling ended up impacting the country in the way he described with aggressions being stimulated. Colored people lost many of their rights that were granted upon the passing of the 14th and 15th amendments, and they were faced with violence and prejudice. A rift between the colored and white was created with colored being labeled as being inferior to whites.

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882 Words | 4 Pages

"We must learn to live together as brothers, or we will parish as fools" (Martin Luther King Jr). That is what was said from one of the most experienced leaders, at during a very judgmental time. Martin Luther King Jr was just one of the many men that changed America. During this time, there was a lot of harassment towards blacks. They were not considered as an equal people.

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When slavery was in effect from 1619 to 1865, white people did not consider slaves people. The white people considered slaves as property objects. Slavery was abolished on December 6, 1865 when the 13th amendment was officially ratified slaves were legally free, but people still had a similar mindset from before. The white people still believed that the black people were lower or inferior to white people.

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An example of a Supreme Court overturning, would be Plessy vs Ferguson. States from the south had laws that had a disadvantage for black people. Plessy who is a light colored black, decided to sit on the white section of the train, and declared his ancestry a couple of minutes after. People demanded him to move, but he refused. He was arrested for not moving.

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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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The decision of the Court was in favor of the state because of the already standing Louisiana laws. I do believe that Homer Plessy’s thirteenth and fourteenth amendments were violated even though the Court stated it was only a distinction of color and not of

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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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Therefore, in the final decision of the case the opinion of the majority voted that the separate accommodations imposed by the state of Louisiana did not violate the clause of equal protection for all races. The decision of the justices was based on the on the separate but equal doctrine concluding that segregation is not an unconstitutional way of

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Plessy’s case would be heard at the District Court. Plessy's side argued “That the law requiring “separate but equal accommodations” was unconstitutional” (Plessy v. Ferguson (1896). However, when it came time for the verdict, Judge John H. Ferguson ruled against Plessy. This wouldn't be the final verdict Homer Plessy was willing to accept, so he filed for a Writ of Prohibition and Certiorari. These would both be granted, and his appeal would be headed to the Supreme Court.

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There was more information supporting Plessy than there was supporting Ferguson, but Plessy was found guilty. Plessy was not guilty though. Plessy got arrested because he sat in a train car specifically for white people. Plessy refused to move to another car for blacks and got arrested (Duignan, Brian). His first court appearance was in 1892.

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It was a 7 to 1 decision. The decision was that separate but equal was legal as long as no discrimination was shown. They believed that "so long as separate facilities were actually qualitatively equal, the constitution did not prohibit segregation in the view of the majority of the court," as stated in the second

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Particularly in the South, they continued to seek opportunities to legal slavery. As a result, Southerners pass a state law, Black Codes, during reconstruction. This law restricted the civil rights and public activities of legally freed African Americans. Owning weapons, freedom of movement, and land ownerships were against Black Codes. Plessy vs. Ferguson (1896), the court case that upheld authority of the state law claiming, “separate-but-equal facilities for whites and blacks” , led up to another significant factor, segregation, which arose to be controversy in mid-1900s.

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