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The Supreme Court Case Of Plessy Vs. Ferguson

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The Supreme Court is a federal court, the highest body in the judicial branch of the United States government. The Supreme Court contains a chief justice and eight associate justices. All of these are appointed by the president and confirmed by the senate. The Supreme Court contains the plaintiff, defendant, chief lawyer for plaintiffs, chief defense lawyer, justices of the court, and the justices dissenting. The plaintiff is a person who brings a case against another in a court of law. The defendant is the person or company being sued in the court of law. A chief lawyer is in the legal department of a company or government. The justice of the court is one of the nine Supreme Court judges chosen by the president. The justices …show more content…

Ferguson, the plaintiff was Homer Plessy. The defendant was John H. Ferguson. The chief lawyer for the plaintiff was F.D McKenny and S.F Phillips. The justices were Henry Billings Brown, Stephen Johnson Field, Melville Fuller, Horace Gray, Rufus Wheeler Peckham, George Shiras Jr, and Edward Douglas White. The judges dissenting were John Marshall Harlan I. This case took place in Washington D.C. and was decided on May 18, 1896. Plessy V.S. Ferguson case dealt with the segregation, 14th amendment Equal Protection Clause. Homer Plessy brought a train ticket intending to go from New Orleans to Covington Louisiana. Homer Plessy was removed from the train and arrested after attempting to sit in an all-white railroad car. He was arrested for violating the Louisiana statute that stated “separate but equal” accommodations. Homer Plessy was sitting in the white train car since he was considered seven-eighths white and one-eighth black. Since he had that one-eighths black he was considered African American, he was not allowed to sit in the all-white railroad car. Homer Plessy refused to get up and move to the blacks-only railroad car, he then was arrested and put in the New Orleans jail. John H. Ferguson took this case and said that it was a crime that Homer Plessy didn’t switch train cars when he was asked to. This caused Homer Plessy to be convicted as guilty since it was against the law for Plessy to be in the wrong railroad car. Homer Plessy’s lawyers made a point that the Supreme Court was violating Homer Plessy’s fourteenth amendment. The fourteenth amendment stated that all citizens with citizenship had rights and equal protection under the law. Since the “separate but equal” was violated also the fourteenth amendment was violated since Homer Plessy wasn’t treated equally even though he was separate. The Louisiana law required that there should be “separate but equal” seating for the whites and African American citizens.

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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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Born in Maryland, Thurgood Marshall was another activist for civil rights. He went to an all-black law school, after being denied entry into the University of Maryland Law School. He would later take the school to court, and win, for violating the 14th Amendment. He went on to handle many landmark cases, as the primary attorney for the NAACP. One of the history making cases was the previous decision on the Plessy v. Ferguson case, convincing the Supreme Court to overturn the original ruling.

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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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Homer Plessy then sued the judge of his trial, Hon. John H. Ferguson at the Louisiana Supreme Court because he felt like his rights of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments had been violated. The lawsuit was going to be a challenge because they were trying to prove that the state of Louisiana denied Homer Plessy equal protection of the laws. On May 18,1896 the U.S Supreme

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The novel Passing of Nella Larsen held the historical and legal implications which can be seen through the judicial case of Homer Plessy who had one-eighth black and seven- eighths white. Plessy was forcibly jailed for sitting in the whites- only section on the railroad car in Louisiana. In 1896, at the Supreme Court, he argued that his black ancestry was insignificant and he was a white person by all definitions. The Supreme Court said that forcing Plessy to exclude from the whites section was against the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments about equal protection. However, Judge John Howard Ferguson affirmed that treating all people equally did not paralleled with eliminating social distinction based on colors.

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The Plessy vs Ferguson court case originated in 1892. On June 7, 1892, Homer Plessy was jailed for sitting in a white car of a Louisiana train. Despite his white complexion, Plessy was considered to be “octoroon” which meant that he was 7/8 white and 1/8 black. Plessy intentionally sat on the white car and announced himself a black. Plessy challenged the separate car act which required that all railroads operating in the state provide “equal but separate accommodations” for White and African-American passengers and prohibited passengers from entering accommodations other than those to which they had been assigned on the basis of their race.

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Homer Plessy was a brave man willing to stand up against southern Jim Crow laws, and that is fate in the Supreme Court is unfair. The Separate Car Act dictates that separate races must sit in separate cars, which is segregatory, and passed by the state of Louisiana. This is in direct violation of the 14th, and rightfully deserved to be challenged. African Americans everywhere should be able to use their rights earned by four long years of bloodshed, and not be dampened by the courts. But the court overlooked the fact that it was an state law, and not private policy, and deemed the segregation private and thus legal.

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Due to this, his case could not be heard because of the courts could only hear cases regarding citizens complains. In result, Dred Scott was not granted his freedom The case of Plessy v. Ferguson drew attention to the Jim Crow laws that were established in the South after reconstitution. The issue highlighted in the case was that of the separation of railway cars based on color in Louisiana. A man by the name of Homer Plessy viewed this law as unconstitutional because he could not ride in the whites only railway car despite the fact that he was 7/8th white.

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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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Jim Crow laws were used to legally segregate African Americans from whites after slavery was eliminated. These laws were “separate but equal” and justified by the Supreme Court in the Plessy vs Ferguson case. Most of the Jim Crow laws prevented mixed couples from marrying. The laws even physically separated blacks from whites in public places such as restaurants and schools. There were penalties to be faced if anyone was caught opposing or breaking the laws.

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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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THE 14TH AMENDMENT In this paper, I will be talking about the equal protection of laws clause in 14th amendment interpreted in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson. This paper will focus on the concern over racial injustice in the judgment of Plessy v. Ferguson. Racial injustice is being looked in several aspects i.e. the argument of absolute equality, the objection to inferiority argument, the personal liberty argument and the good faith argument. In the end, I will conclude that the decision of Plessy v. Ferguson is a pernicious decision.

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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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The decade of the 1960s is remembered as one of the most turbulent times of Americanhistory. The decade, from riots to assassinations, was filled with violent disorder and confusion. Even with opposition and disagreement all over the United States, some movements took apeaceful, nonviolent approach with one of the most well-known and successful being the CivilRights Movement. The African American Civil Rights movement was a nonviolent fight for equal rights forAfrican Americans after years of mistreatment and segregation. The ultimate goal of themovement was to gain the rights of an American citizen.

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Because of Plessy’s refusal he was immediately arrested. The Citizens Committee of New Orleans fought the case in 1896 all the way to the United States Supreme Court. They lost in the case named, Plessy V. Ferguson. The court ruled that "separate but equal" facilities were constitutional. The finding contributed to 58 years of legalized discrimination against black and colored people in the United States.

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