The Neglected Case of Buchanan v. Warley.
Emily Patrick
Junior Division
Paper
The Land Ordinance of Louisville In 1916 there was a Land Ordinance in Louisville, KY, which stated that African Americans where prohibited from living on a block where the majority of residents were white. It also prohibited whites from living on a block where the majority of residents were black. In order to challenge this law, Warley, a black man, agreed to purchase Buchanan 's house. Buchanan was white. Just by this simple action, Warley and Buchanan 's lives would change, and would indeed challenge not only the law, but the court as well.
Pre-case
When it came time to purchase the house, Buchanan had Warley sign a
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The Case Comes to an End The result of the case was finally decided on November 5, 1917, over a year after the incident happened. In reaching the result, the Court rejected the idea that racial segregation applied to the sale of real estate. The Court still upheld that different races should be segregated in public, but in real estate this should not apply, as there was no attempt to mix races in a social setting. The Court declared that it could not change the views of people about white superiority to blacks, but that it in upholding the right of people to buy and sell property, it was merely allowing citizens to exercise ‘‘their constitutional rights and privileges’’ to own land. So, did the court prove that Louisville 's Ordinance was unconstitutional? Yes. In a unanimous decision, the Court concluded that the Ordinance violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. According to the Court, The Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Fourteenth Amendment "assured to the colored race the enjoyment of all the civil rights…enjoyed by white persons." Louisville 's interest did
In 1892 and in the 1950’s two cases were tried to the United States Supreme Court that would forever change black and white segregation in America. There’s amendments set in place so that America could grow from skin color based segregation, and states tried finding loopholes around these amendments. In case of Plessy vs Ferguson took place where the 14th Amendment was violated. Later in the 1950’s a case called Brown vs Board of Education was also violating the 14 Amendment. Both cases were taken to court and tried against the government for unjust violations of the 14th amendment.
An example of racial profiling that involves both Stop-and-Frisk and DWB is the incident behind Whren v. United States. The incident behind the case involved two black men, Michael Whren and James Lester Brown, in Washington D.C. who were driving a truck through a high drug area. An unmarked police car with two officers pulled up next to the truck that was stopped at a stop sign for an unreasonable amount of time and then sped away at a high speed. The police officers then pulled them over and saw a clear plastic bag. Under the suspicion that it was drugs, they searched the car and ended up finding a substantial amount of drugs. The decision of Whren v. United States says that if a police officer has a reasonable suspicion, he can stop the car for that reason alone. There is no need for a traffic offense because ‘driving suspiciously’ is enough to warrant a stop. While yes, they did see the plastic bag and that was the caused for the search, they stopped them because they were African American men in a high drug area and drove suspiciously. There is no saying that if they were two white men that they would not have been pulled over as well, however, if they were two black men not in a high drug area and drove suspiciously they would have still been more likely to be pulled over than two white men. This shows the underlying problem is not that the law directly discriminates, it’s that the police who enforce and the society who follows it that have biases and stereotypes that
The Plessy V. Ferguson and Brown V. Board of Education are two cases that changed the way that we live today in a quite dramatic way. The Plessy V. Ferguson was a case that promoted segregation. The majority voted for segregation and the minorities opposed the idea and the key precedent that was established after this case was that the U.S. Supreme Court didn't base their trial off of the constitution and instead based their trial upon the statement 'separate but equal'. The Brown V. Board of Education case was a case that completely opposed the idea of 'separate but equal' because the whole case revolved around the fact that a mother wanted her children to go to a school that was easier to get to however it was a school that was only for white children so the mother decided to take the case to court and the majority voted on letting the African American students attend white schools and the minorities voted otherwise. The key precedent that was established after this case was that segregation in schools violates the 14th amendment and it should not be permitted by the U.S. Supreme Court. These two cases were important for the transformation for the America we have today, and they influenced America's thought process and actions significantly.
John Adams, on the last day of his term, appointed forty-two justices of the peace and sixteen new circuit court justices under the Organic Act, which was an attempt by the Federalists to take over the judicial branch before Thomas Jefferson took the office. The commissions were not delivered before the end of Adam’s term, so Thomas Jefferson claimed they were invalid and did not honor them. William Marbury was one of the appointed justices of the peace and appealed directly to the Supreme Court when he was denied his position. Due to the Judiciary Act of 1789, Marbury wanted the Supreme Court to make James Madison (Secretary of State) deliver the commissions.
James Buchanan was an unsuccessful president due to his unwillingness to see the national effects of his decisions on slavery. In his inaugural address, Buchanan signaled his desire to serve as a “peacemaker.” At the time of his election to President in 1856 under the Democratic nomination, few people expected him to have Republicans in the cabinet. Yet he almost had no Democratic representation. Regardless of the appointees to his cabinet, Buchanan was stubborn and stuck to his own views, either choosing not to see the effects slavery had on the nation, or simply being clueless to the repercussions. James Buchanan supported the Dred Scott case in the Supreme Court, was in favor of the Kansas-Nebraska act, and created stronger sectionalism, greatly affecting the political parties.
Furthermore, there was a young girl named Linda Brown who attended a school very far away from her house. On the other hand, there is a school not to far from her ,but it’s an all white school. So Linda Brown and her family took it to court saying that blacks not being able to go to any school is a violation of the 14th amendment. The lower courts shut them down so they appealed the case to the Supreme Court. The dissenting opinion was "We conclude that the doctrine of 'separate but equal ' has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." —Chief Justice Earl Warren. This was the precedent that was established and the final decision.The majority opinion was “The "separate but equal" doctrine adopted in Plessy v. Ferguson has no place in the field of public education.(Find Law)”.Which means that they are saying that since the last case happened on a rail car and not public education it shouldn’t have
Once Martin Luther King Jr. said “now is the time to rise from the darkand desolate vally of segregation to the sunlightpath of racal justice”. He said this in his speech in the 1960’s, many African Americans were treathed unfairly. Before the speech something happened. In Birmingham, Alabama something happened that would change America.
The case of brown v. board of education was one of the biggest turning points for African Americans to becoming accepted into white society at the time. Brown vs. Board of education to this day remains one of, if not the most important cases that African Americans have brought to the surface for the better of the United States. Brown v. Board of Education was not simply about children and education (Silent Covenants pg 11); it was about being equal in a society that claims African Americans were treated equal, when in fact they were definitely not. This case was the starting point for many Americans to realize that separate but equal did not work. The separate but equal label did not make sense either, the
Case. This was the most important day in US history for African Americans. This is because it helped blacks gain
There are many controversial decisions that were made in the last 100 years in American history. One of the most important decisions made in my opinion was the decision to sign the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law. In today's world, it would sound crazy to tell someone that they are not equal to the rest of society. Luckily, people today don't have to deal with laws that take away their individual rights and cause discrimination against them. African Americans were segregated in all aspects of society, such as going to segregated school districts and having segregated public places away from Caucasian people.Without the hundreds of boycotts, marches, protests and federal government enforcement to end racial inequality among people, we would not have the Civil Rights Act of 1964 today that allows African Americans the right to vote, citizenship, education equality, and the ability to share public places. Many people agreed on this becoming law, and others refused.
Board of Education in 1951 declared state laws establishing separate schools for black and white students to be unconstitutional. The Brown v. Board of Education act would allow african americans to go to college with the whites, before this act african americans could go to school but not to college and the education that they had was horrific. The books that they used were that of the white schools hand me downs, so there for the things that they were learning were not up to date and if the teachers were african american they had around the same education if any. The act would also make James Meredith known as the first african american to attend the all white school of Ole Miss. James Meredith would also attend marches and other types of peaceful protest held by the NAACP. The Brown v. Board of Education act would change the life for many african americans.
The Court asked the question, was the closing of the state pools an action that denies “equal protection of the laws” to Blacks. They felt the answer was no since both races received the same treatment. The Courts also felt that neither the 14th amendment nor any Act of Congress purports to impose a duty on a State to begin to operate or to continue to operate public swimming pools. They felt that since this was not a case where whites are permitted to use public facilities while blacks were denied, nor a case where a city is maintaining different sets of facilities for blacks and whites and enforcing them to remain separate that there was no reason to force the city to reopen the swimming pools. They felt that it was constitutional because the city showed that integrated pools could not be maintained safely and economically.
The Brown v. Board of Education Court Case served as a highlighted issue in black history. Brown v. Board help different races comes together in public schools. This case became very big 1950s lots of attention was drawn to the case at that time. News reporter and critics had different views and opinions about this case. This case in 1954 causes lots of issues and views towards the black race. The quote “separate but equal” is vital due to “Plessy v. Ferguson” and the famous lawyer Thurgood Marshall who argued this case, and the success of this case itself.
This was considered illegal and Plessy got arrested. Plessy chose to fight his case in court, because the segregation laws violated the fourteenth amendment. Four years later, the case was brought to the Supreme Court. The justices ruled against Homer Plessy. Their decision was that segregation is legal as long as equal facilities were provided. Justice Henry Billings Brown summarized, "The object of the [Fourteenth] amendment was undoubtedly to enforce the equality of the two races before the law, but in the nature of things it could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color, or to endorse social, as distinguished from political, equality. . . If one race be inferior to the other socially, the Constitution of the United States cannot put them upon the same plane."
primarily the result of challenges made by the NAACP, and the resulting general shifts in