Legal Opinion of Overturning Plessy v Ferguson Sentence By: Estephanos Bekele Homer Plessy was an innocent man living in the state of Louisiana. He was a Creole, meaning that he was 7/8th white and only 1/8th black. Nevertheless, in the eyes of the law, he was considered African American. The SAA was the Separate Accommodations Act, created in 1890, for the state of Louisiana, was meant to force the blacks to sit in the back of trains, while whites were allowed to sit in the front of vehicles (Wikipedia Contributors). This helped start discrimination, and the notion that although the blacks were separate, they were still considered equal. 2 years after the act was passed, on June 7th, 1892, Plessy bought a ticket for a train in New Orleans, …show more content…
Slavery was the foundation of segregation. Blacks were being separated from the whites during the times of slavery, mostly because of Bacon’s rebellion. Bacon’s rebellion united both races, poor whites and poor blacks to fight back against the Native Americans, and eventually try to dethrone the corrupted government (Berlin). After Bacon died, the rebellion had ended, and the government feared that another rebellion could begin by unifying the poor whites and blacks. Thus, the government gave more rights to the whites, and put the poor blacks into an even lower class (Berlin). As a result, slavery started. Bacon’s rebellion was what caused the government to give more rights to white people than to colored people. The effects of the rebellion were still felt in 1892 because again, black people were being discriminated against, and thought of as a part of a different group. This relates to the Plessy case by how Plessy was convicted because of his race, and the reason this notion of race became such an important idea was because of Bacon’s rebellion and …show more content…
However, blacks were not getting to sit where they wanted to. They were punished just because they were trying to be viewed as equals and trying to get the same opportunities as white men. In this case, Plessy was trying to fight for the rights of blacks and to make a stand, so that blacks would be able to be viewed as equal. They were continuously reminded of slavery because they were always put on a lower level than whites, even during the Reconstruction Era, which means they were still being divided and stashed into a lower class, which was exactly what was happening during slavery. Blacks were not allowed to pursue happiness when they were constantly tethered and reminded of slavery and that they were told that they were