Plessy V Ferguson

This 1896 U.S. Supreme Court case upheld the constitutionality of segregation under the “separate but equal” doctrine. It stemmed from an 1892 incident in which African-American train passenger Homer Plessy refused to sit in a Jim Crow car, breaking a Louisiana law. Rejecting Plessy’s argument that his constitutional rights were violated, 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, its reasoning 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 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.The Court avoided discussion of the protection granted by the clause in the 14th Amendment that forbids the states to make laws depriving citizens of their “privileges or immunities,” but instead cited such laws in other states as a “reasonable” exercise of their authority under the police power. The purpose of the 14th Amendment, the Court said, was “to enforce the absolute equality of the two races before the law…. Laws … requiring their separation … do not necessarily imply the inferiority of either race.” The argument against segregation laws was false because of the “assumption that the enforced separation of the two races stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority. If this be so, it is … solely because the colored race chooses to put that construction upon it.”The lone dissenter, Kentuckian and former slave owner Justice John MarshallHarlan, denied that a legislature could differentiate on the basis of race with regard to civil rights. He wrote: “The white race deems itself to be the dominant race,” but the Constitution recognizes “no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens.” Harlan continued: “Our Constitution is color-blind…. In respect of civil rights all citizens are equal before the law.” The Court’s majority opinion, he pointed out, gave power to the states “to place in a condition of legal inferiority a large body of American citizens.”Following the Plessy decision, restrictive legislation based on race continued and expanded steadily, and its reasoning was not overturned until Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka in 1954.

The Plessy V Ferguson case is relevant to what we are going over in class at the moment.  I like studying this case because I feel as if it has so much history to it.  The case is about a black man (Pessy) who tried to sit in a white person rail road cart on a train.  He was asked to move and he would not, therefore he was arrested for "breaking the law" at the time.  Although none of us lived in this era, I believe that racism is absurd.  Especially in times like this court case.  Does it really matter if a black man sits next to you on a train?  At the time I guess it mattered, but nowadays it does not.  Racism truly bothers me, I believe that everyone in America should be treaty equally regardless of skin color.  Although, at the time of the case it was illegal, causing Plessy to lose the case.  He argued the 13th and 14th amendment, yet still lost the case.  He broke the rules, and white people grew angry.  This case has so much history because it was one of the first of its kind.  Must have been an interesting period to be alive.

http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/plessy-v-ferguson