Plessy V. Ferguson Case Analysis

In order to show how the “separate but equal” doctrine came to be, as a class we created a mock trial of the Plessy v. Ferguson case. The idea of separate but equal allowed states to segregate black and white people through public services and accommodations for over 60 years. Despite this idea of equality in the doctrine, many people took advantage of it, as it gave both black and white people an influence on whether they were inferior or superior.

Laws are enforced to provide our society with safety, boundaries, protection of rights, and overall justice. The United States Constitution and Bill of Rights were established years ago to reduce the tensions and conflicts of our newly founded nation. It sought out to accomplish this by providing justice through an equal voice for all citizens. However, this equal voice for justice more often times than not is squandered and diminished. Things such as race, religion, and culture often times blur the lines of the law and fair outcomes in a court. Individuals feel that their beliefs are more important than the protection of rights and the deliverance of law or the law itself cannot go outside of its limitations to provide justice. This is apparent in the court cases of Marbury v Madison, Plessy v Ferguson, and the book To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee. These cases clearly exemplify that the law does not always provide justice, although it endeavors to do so.

The Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson is known for having established the precedent of “separate but equal.” The case originated in Louisiana and was specifically made to the separate passenger cars that were for the black and white races. The Supreme Court, in this case, upheld the right of Louisiana to separate the races and “this decision provided the legal foundation to justify many other actions by state and local governments to socially separate blacks and whites” (Zimmerman, 1997). It was not until the famous Brown v. Board of Education case in 1954 that the highest court in the land outlawed the principal of segregation and the concept of “separate but equal.”

The landmark case of Plessy v. Ferguson is a Constitutional case in which it had to be decided who the constitution meant when it said "all men are created equal." This case is very important to our constitution and to the people being governed by the constitution because it brought up issues that hadn't been discussed in the U.S before. This case shows the degree of federalism and how much the government paid attention to it. The amendments in the constitution do not apply to a simple race or ethnicity. Throughout history laws have been made and destroyed at the cost of colored people, in the Plessy v. Ferguson case it is shown that due to the thirteenth and fourteenth amendments all citizens have equal protection under the law. Plessy was denied his right, as well as other colored people because they belonged to different bathrooms, they belonged to different train cars and they belonged to different water fountains at this time in history, but Plessy'

7 out of 8 judges in the Plessy vs. Ferguson case said that segregation was constitutional. The Supreme Court Case between Homer Adolf Plessy and John Howard Ferguson. The object of the case was to try to decide whether or not segregation was constitutional. Mr. Plessy was 30 years old when the case started. He was the prosecutor in the case. The case was originally called “Plessy v. The State of Louisiana”. Homer Adolf Plessy was a determined man who worked hard at abolishing segregation base on your race and would do anything, including getting arrested, to get the message out that segregation was a bad thing, and it needed to come to an end.

In this book, Barber and Zelter use a lot of different sources whether it be biblical or historical. There are uses of bible verses are there to ground their arguments on a religious basis and historical references such as Martin Luther King or the court case Plessy v. Ferguson to give us historical context. Their sources also consist of the North Carolina Constitution and Declaration of Right, to show the hypocrisy of the political officials that govern. He uses all these sources to explain where the power really lies, and this is the power of the people. They use secondary source with news are article of the event in North Carolina in the early 2000s and primary source with speeches from MLK and Supreme Court cases. Barber offers sound evidence

The Plessy v. Ferguson case set an important precedent in the history of the united states. While the conclusion of the case itself remains that all public facilities are to remain segregated it gave way, as a trigger for many important developments we have today to occur. Not only did the case set a precedent for future cases, but it also legitimized the principles of Jim Crow. By legitimizing a principle of thought and social standard through politics, the principle now becomes even more arrogant as it is enforceable by further statutes and legislature and makes even more difficult for the issue to be amended. Though further decisions were made to advance the society of the United States, the mentality of our society was not corrected but

1. Plessy v. Ferguson, Guinn v. United States, Buchanan v. Worley all dealt with the Jim Crow laws or Seperate but equal legislation. The Jim Crow laws were laws written to separate blacks and whites in public areas/meant African Americans had unequal opportunities in housing, work, education, and government. Seperate but Equal legislation was the judicial precedent established by in the Plessy v Ferguson decision that enabled states to interpret the equal protection provision of the fourteenth amendment as a means of establishing segregation. The blacks tried to take action to reduce the Jim Crow laws by trying to make life better. They developed universities, churches, political appointments and jobs.

In 1896, Plessy lost the case Plessy v. Ferguson by a vote of 7-1, which ruled that

For the longest time there were a lot of different views on African Americans and their place in the world. They were looked down upon and failed to be treated as citizens, but treated as animals. Three different court cases largely effected the civil rights movement by bringing together our schools, slowly desegregating our lives and improving equality of everyone: Plessy vs. Ferguson, Swann vs. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, and University of California vs. Bakke.

The issue that was being argued in the plessy vs ferguson case was Can the states constitutionally enact legislation requiring persons of different races to use “separate but equal” segregated facilities? The state of louisiana

The Plessy vs. Ferguson case and the Black vs. Board of Education are cases that were brought to the Supreme Court in order to stop the 'separation but equal' law due to the fact that colored people had the same rights as the whites but were never actually treated equally. Some people judge a person on their looks and color, and that makes people feel as if they should be ashamed of who they are but it's better to be true to who you are. These cases make people think about what African Americans had to deal with in the 1800s and 1900s and it's shows how far America has come. The cases made our world a better place by raising awareness for colored people, the cases showed that the idea of 'separate but equal' conflicted with the 14th Amendment which made it unconstitutional for children of color to attend different school facilities just because of the feeling that colored people are inferior. The Supreme Court may not have realized it at first but they eventually made the right decision, but here are some reasons that the idea of "separate but equal" didn't represent what the Constitution stands for. Segregation was and still is a problem in our world, some people just can't treat others equal, these are

On June 7, 1892, Plessy boarded a New Orleans train and sat in the “whites only” car.  Plessy then informed the conductor that he was black and the railroad officials, following through on the arrangement, arrested Plessy and charged him with violating the Separate Car Act. Tourgée’s plan was officially in motion.  In the Criminal District Court for the Parish of Orleans, Tourgée argued that the law requiring “separate but equal accommodations” was unconstitutional as it violated the 13th & 14th Amendments. Further, as illustrated by Plessy’s arrest, there was no way for railroad companies to enforce the law. (Had Plessy not announced himself, no one would have ever known he was black.)  As Tourgée anticipated, Judge John H. Ferguson ruled

“Separate but equal” is interpreted as the doctrine that gave grounds for racial segregation, yet provided equal opportunities for people of all races. The question here however, is how “equal” is this doctrine when so much inequality exists between black and white individuals? In 1896, the United States Supreme Court made a decision on the Plessy v. Ferguson case, concluding that separate facilities for white and black people were constitutional on the basis that they were equal. This landmark decision set by the Supreme Court led to the struggle of finding equality and justice among different races, causing racial discrimination throughout the southern part of the United States. As people struggled to claim justice, the rulings that took place during the time caused animosity among people within the black and white area throughout the South, destroying all possibilities of tranquility and equality between the two.

Racial equality is perhaps the most prominent aspect of civil rights and the one that has undergone the most changes since the Bill of Rights and the Constitution were first devised. One of the first major developments concerned the Civil War Amendment, which outlawed slavery. Future court rulings included the 1896 ruling of Plessy v. Ferguson, which established strict segregation between races under the title of "separate but equal." The ethos of Plessy v. Ferguson was reversed in 1954 with the case of Brown v. Board of Education, which ended segregation and resulted in the racial integration of schools. More recently, in 1991, the court listed strict desegregation in the case of Darrell v. Oklahoma City.