The Law Of The Land For 57 Years

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.

The five reports of school segregation separately went to local courts with no avail. The cases then appealed to the Supreme Court, where they were pooled under the title “Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas”. (Good, 31, 32) (Davidson et al. 850)

Brown v. Board of Education was a landmark case that was decided by the Supreme Court of America in 1954. It is a case that is believed to have brought to an end decades of increasing racial segregation that was experienced in America’s public schools. The landmark decision of this case was resolved from six separate cases that originated from four states. The Supreme Court is believed to have preferred rearguments in the case because of its preference for presentation of briefs. The briefs were to be heard from both sides of the case, with the focus being on five fundamental questions. The questions focused on the attorneys’ opinions about whether Congress viewed segregation in public schools when it ratified the 14th amendment (Benoit, 2013). Changes were then made to the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.

The book “Brown v. Board of Education: A Brief History with Documents” is Waldo E. Martin’s observation on not just the landmark case of Brown v. Board but also the institutionalized racism that was overcome to get there. It also documents other cases that Brown v. Board built upon to get the decision that challenged “separate but equal”. In this text Martin gives a glimpse into not just what the court order did from a legislative standpoint, but from a human standpoint, what happened to the people, community, and society in general both prior and in the wake of the of this monumental decision.

In 1896 the United States Supreme Court ruled that it was constitutionally legal to segregate African Americans with their white counterparts. In the court case of Plessy v. Ferguson an African American man in Louisiana named Homer Plessy refused to follow the mandated Jim Crow laws which enforced that African Americans have to sit in a designated area when riding on a train. Plessy argued that his fourteenth amendment right was violated equal-protection clause, which “prohibits the states from denying “equal protection of the laws” to any person within their jurisdictions”(Duignan, 2016). However, when Plessy’s case moved to the Supreme Court they ruled“ the object of the Fourteenth Amendment was to create "absolute equality of the two races before the law," such equality extended only so far as political and civil rights (e.g., voting and serving on juries), not "social rights" (e.g., sitting in a railway car one chooses) (McBride, n.d. ). As a result, Plessy v. Ferguson

Supreme Court case upheld the constitutionality of segregation under the “separate but equal” doctrine. The Court ruled that a state law that “implies merely a legal distinction” between whites and blacks did not conflict with the 13th and14th Amendments. Restrictive legislation based on race continued following the Plessy decision, it was not overturned until Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka in 1954. The case came from Louisiana, which in 1890 adopted a law providing for “equal but separate accommodations for the white and colored races” on its railroads. In 1892, passenger Homer Plessy refused to sit in a Jim Crow car. He was brought before Judge John H. Ferguson of the Criminal Court for New Orleans, who upheld the state law. The law was challenged in the Supreme Court on grounds that it conflicted with the 13th and 14th

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

Brown vs. board of education is considered to be one of the greatest Supreme Court decisions of the 20th century because it was unanimously voted that separating white and black public schools violated the Equal Protection Clause of the fourteenth amendment. This decision, however, didn’t fully desegregate all public schools until 1963.

The Plessy v Ferguson case was a U.S. Supreme Case in 1896 that upheld the constitution of segregation. This case started when Homer Plessy refused to sit in a Jim Crow Car therefore breaking a law in Louisiana in the year 1892. He had bought a first class ticket and then took his seat in a white-only car. Homer Plessy was arrested and imprisoned immediately. In the court Plessy argued that his Constitutional rights were violated, and he filed a petition against John H. Ferguson. Plessy argued that the segregation law violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth and Thirteenth amendment. The Fourteenth Amendment keeps states from denying equal protection of the laws to every person and the Thirteenth Amendment banned slavery. The court denied Plessy’s petition and said that the Thirteenth Amendment only had to deal with slavery and nothing else.

Monday, May 17, 1954 was the day in which the education system was changed and racism started making a turn for the best. The case that helped this movement was Brown v. Board of Education and is know today as one of the greatest Supreme Court decision of the 20th century. It all started when the plaintiff Oliver Brown a parent of one of the student who were denied admission to a white school in Topeka, Kansas. Brown argued that by not allowing his daughter into the school was a violation to the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause. The clause states that both white and black schools should be equal. On those terms the federal district court dismissed the claim, on terms that the black schools were substantially equal enough to meet the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause. Brown

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954),[1] was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court that declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students unconstitutional. The decision overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896

Refusing to giving up, Brown then appealed to the Supreme Court, questioning whether it was constitutional to segregate schools. Furthermore, Brown v. Board of Education was also a case where the NAACP was involved and wrote an amicus curiae brief, or a friend of the court brief, to push along the trail. The court finally decided on a unanimous vote in favor of Brown (“Brown v. Board of Education (I)”). This was a huge accomplishment for the Civil Rights Movement. For once, it showed the Constitution on the side of racial equality. The effects of the landmark are long lasting and immense, but it was not, however, immediate.

In 1892, the Plessy v. Ferguson case had emerged from a conflict from Louisiana’s Separate Car Act. The law required that railroads have “separate but equal accommodations,” prohibiting African American and White passengers from entering besides the one they were assigned to based on race. Homer Plessy, a seven-eighths White and one-eighth African American bought a rail travel ticket in Louisiana for the White car and took a seat. He was later told to move to the African American car, after refusing to move he was arrested and charged for not complying with the Separate Car Act.

In 1892, Homer Plessy was a passenger in a railroad and who refused to sit in a Jim Crow car. He brought before Judge John H. Ferguson of the Criminal Court from New Orleans, who upheld the state law. The law was challenged in the Supreme Court on grounds that it conflicted with the 13th and 14th Amendments. Although, the Supreme Court had ruled in 1896, Plessy v Ferguson inculcated the “separate but equal” doctrine and passed laws entailing the segregation of races, arguing that Jim Crow laws were constitutional. The case was devastating for African Americans allowing the oppression of an entire race. The Supreme Court system in practice was separate and unequal;

The “separate but equal” ruling in the 1896 Supreme Court case of Plessy v. Ferguson extended into many facets of everyday life in America. This doctrine led to the passage of laws that separated blacks from whites and reinforced blacks’ social inferiority during this period. Educational buildings, restrooms, hotels and even hospitals all had separate facilities to accommodate the white and black races. This judicial outcome forced African Americans to face further racial oppression, while igniting new legal discrimination in their communities (Berman). African American families grappled with these circumstances, fully aware of the unjust and unequal treatment they now faced. However, change would come as Oliver Brown, an African American from Topeka, Kansas, sued the Topeka Board of Education in 1951. The public school building in Brown’s neighborhood barred his daughter because of her black skin color. Different from other school cases during this time, the Brown case focused on the inequality of segregated education rather than just highlighting the poorer conditions of black schools.