Plessy vs. Ferguson: A Case Study

There was no clarification on what race would be considered white or what would be considered black. During this incident, “Homer Plessy, who was seven-eighths white and one-eighth African American, purchased a rail ticket for travel within Louisiana and took a seat in a car reserved for white passengers. (The state Supreme Court had ruled earlier that the law could not be applied to interstate travel.) After refusing to move to a car for African Americans, he was arrested and charged with violating the Separate Car Act.”(Duignan 2017). Judge Ferguson ruled that the separation was fair and did not violate the fourteenth amendment. The state Supreme Court also backed up this decision. The case was brought to the Supreme Court and "The law was challenged in the Supreme Court on grounds that it conflicted with the 13th and 14th Amendments. By a 7-1 vote, the Court said that a state law that “implies merely a legal distinction” between the two races did not conflict with the 13th Amendment forbidding involuntary servitude, nor did it tend to reestablish such a condition." (History.com Staff 2009). This decision set the key precedent of Separate but Equal in the United States. Racial segregation kept growing.

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 1920’s, was a decade of change, when Americans owned cars, radios and other electronics for the first time. The cars brought great transportation and the need for new roads. The radio brought music and entertainment to all. Electronics became a wide phenomenon where it helped with things from transportation to cooking. The 1920’s was a new era which brought immense change to Americans but after WWI, the nation suffered with strikes and a targeted upon communists and foreigners. This was also the time of the red scare. The Red Scare had begun following the Bolshevik Russian Revolution of 1917; a nationwide fear of communists, socialists and anarchists.

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'

In 1896, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Jim Crow Laws and Segregation during the trial of Plessy vs. Ferguson. Homer Plessy, the plaintiff, was considered a free white man, despite having a distant relative from Africa. He challenged segregation when he purchased a

Assassinations, riots, and boycotting all led up to the society we have today. Whites and blacks were not allowed to be friends, class mates or even be around each other. They had separate things which listed whites only and blacks only. This included schools, railroad cars, and busses.Two key cases are Plessy v.s. Ferguson and Brown v.s. Board of Education. The majority and minority’s decisions for these two cases set precedent that will effect everyone in America. These landmark cases are closely related because they helped provide the true intent of the 13th and 14th amendment. In addition, Plessy v.s. Ferguson and Brown v.s. Board of Education effectively help revolutionize the interpretation of the 13th and 14th amendment.

On June 7, 1892, Homer Plessy, a thirty year-old shoemaker bought a first class ticket preparing to travel from New Orleans to Covington, Louisiana. Homer Plessy was something called a “Creole of Color” a phrase used to describe black people in New Orleans that trace their ancestry to the French, the Spanish and the Caribbean settlers. He had a very light colored skin tone and was only one eighth black. Even so, he was required by law to sit in the black section of the train. He boarded the train and sat in the “white” car. (Wormser) The conductor questioned him, and after refusing to move he was arrested and charged with not following state law. He went first to the Criminal District Court for the Parish of Orleans, and Tourgee, the hired lawyer, brought his case that the “separate but equal” rules were unconstitutional. Judge John H. Ferguson ruled against him, but that did not stop Homer Plessy. Instead, he applied to the State Supreme Court for the ability to go on to the United States Supreme Court. (Wormser)

In 1892 the Supreme Court ruled 7-1 against Homer Plessy, a one-eighth black man who fought to sit in a train car reserved for white people in Louisiana 1. Since he was not allowed to ride in said cars, his 14th amendment right against discrimination of any American citizen was violated 1. The Supreme Court rejected Plessy's argument that Louisiana law conflicted with the thirteenth amendment and the fourteenth amendment 1. The justices claimed however, that separation of races does not make someone feel

Plessy v. Ferguson This was a petition filed in the supreme court of Louisiana in 1896, by Homer Plessy, the plaintiff. He filed this petition against the Honorable John H. Ferguson, judge of The petitioner was a citizen of the United States and a descent meaning he had both white and African American ethnic backgrounds. Keep in mind that at this time Blacks were not considered equal to whites.

The Plessy versus Ferguson case started with an incident where an African American passenger on a train, Homer Plessy, broke Louisiana law by refusing to sit in a Jim Crow car, a separate cart on the train where African Americans had to sit. This

Millions of people go to court to fight for something they believe in or disagree with, but don't get their voices heard. The constitution made amendments to ensure fairness and it's not right if we don't have those fairnesses. In Brown v board of education and Plessy v Ferguson they were fighting to have rights and fairness, but Plessy v Ferguson got their rights heard right away and the Brown v board of Education didn't get there voices heard in till many years after they went to court. In the 1890's Plessy got on the wrong train car and decided he didn't want to move. The authorities said that Plessy would have to pay $25 or go to jail for 20 days, so when he refused they put him in jail. This violated the 14th amendment because, its unequal that white children had better things. In 1950-1951 segregation was a big problem even with little kids going to different schools just because of the

In the case of Plessy V Ferguson, a man named “Homer Plessy, who was one eighth black, purchased a first class ticket and sat in an all whites only railroad car.” At the time Louisiana had a law put in place that stated any and every railing company in Louisiana carrying passengers must have separate cars for the whites and the colored. Plessy was arrested and he argued that the Act conflicted with the thirteenth and fourteenth amendments but lost

Homer A. Plessy was an African American cobbler (shoemaker) who was riding the Louisiana train. He sat in the Railroad car reserved for whites and was arrested when he revealed to the conductor that he was African American. When Plessy stated his plea that the Louisiana Jim Crow Railroad Car Law was unconstitutional, it was overruled by John H. Ferguson, a judge of the criminal court for New Orleans. There were challenges with their law in their Supreme Court; the problem was that it was conflicting with their Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendment. The Thirteenth amendment was meant to prohibit slavery and the Fourteenth amendment stated that any human born or naturalized in the US of any race are american citizens. When the case was brought