Plessy V. Ferguson Case Analysis

810 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: The controversy of plessy vs ferguson

When reconstruction had ended in 1877, new State legislatures enacted Jim Crow laws. Jim Crow laws legally segregated African Americans from whites. Jim Crow laws also imposed second-class citizenships to African Americans. These laws created separate parks, waiting rooms, schools, restrooms and other public accommodations. The Civil Rights Cases of 1883 ruled the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, which provided nothing against private segregation. Around the 1890s, the Louisiana legislature passed a law that required railroads to separate passengers by their race. Trains that had two or more passenger cars were required to have designated seating for the different races. If the trains only had only one passenger car, then a curtain or another form of partition divided these cars. The State had a fine of 25 dollars or up to 20 days in jail if someone were to sit in the wrong compartment. The Supreme Court Case Plessy v. Ferguson was an important Supreme …show more content…

Virginia. The case was about an interracial couple, 17-year-old Mildred Jeter, who was black and her childhood sweetheart of a 23-year-old white construction worker Richard Loving against Virginia. Virginia had laws that banned marriage between blacks and whites. After they were married in Washington D.C and returned to their home state, the couple was charged with unlawful cohabitation and jailed. The judge sentenced the Lovings to a year in prison. The Lovings left Virginia and went to live with relatives in Washington D. C when they returned a couple years later they were arrested for traveling together. The Civil Rights Movement inspired them and Mildred Loving wrote to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy for help. The couple was then referred to the ACLU, which represented them in the landmark Supreme Court Case, Loving v. Virginia (1967). The Court ruled that state bans on interracial marriage were

Show More
Related

  • Smith V. Case Brief

    976 Words  | 2 Pages

    II. Trial Court Ruling. The district court granted the defendant’s motion for summary judgment on the plaintiff’s sexual harassment claim. The plaintiff’s retaliation claim went to trial, but the court excluded evidence regarding the alleged sexual harassment. The court refused to grant the plaintiff a new trial. The appellate court affirmed the district court’s ruling.

    Read More

  • Miscegenation Case Analysis

    991 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the Loving v. Virginia, 388 US 1 (1967) is the landmark ruling that nullified anti-miscegenation laws in the United States. In June 1958, Mildred Loving, a black female, married Richard Loving, a white male, in Washington, DC. The couple traveled to Central Point, Virginia and their home was raided by the local police. The police charged the Loving’s of interracial marriage, a felony charge under Section 20-58 of the Virginia Code which prohibited interracial marriages. On January 6, 1959, the couple pled guilty and received a suspended sentence with the agreement that they would Virginia and not return for 25 years. In November 6, 1963, the couple filed a motion in the state court to vacate the original judgment on the grounds it violated the Fourteenth Amendment.

    Read More

  • Loving V. Virginia Summary

    607 Words  | 2 Pages

    Loving V. Virginia is a notable case where two citizens of Virginia, a 17 year old African American female named Mildred Jeter, married a 23 year old white man named Richard Loving in Washington, DC in June 1958. During this time the District of Columbia did not have any laws prohibiting interracial marriages where as Virginia, the state the two currently resided in did. Not long after their marriage the newlyweds returned to Virginia and were served an indictment by the Circuit Court of Caroline County in October 1958. The indictment stated that the two were violating Virginia’s anti-miscegenation laws against interracial marriage. Thus the Lovings had to plead guilty to the charges in January 1959 (Warren, 1967).

    Read More

  • Plessy V. Ferguson's Argumentative Essay

    567 Words  | 2 Pages

    Rough draft segregation was a terribly unfair law that lasted about a hundred years in the United States. A group of high school students who struggled for better educational conditions were a big factor in ending segregation in the United States. Even though going on strike for better conditions may have negative impacts, African Americans were not treated equally in education because of segregation and the Jim Crow laws were so unfair and the black schools were in terrible condition compared to the whites’. In 1896 the Plessy v. Ferguson case made the segregation of blacks and whites legal; and the Supreme Court made the Jim Crow laws legal, saying that blacks are “separate but equal.” African Americans knew that was unfair and could especially see it in the schools.

    Read More

  • Jim Crow Law Essay

    759 Words  | 2 Pages

    Separate but Equal doctrine existed long before the Supreme Court accepted it into law, and on multiple occasions it arose as an issue before then. In 1865, southern states passed laws called “Black Codes,” which created restrictions on the freed African Americans in the South. This became the start of legal segregation as juries couldn’t have African Americans, public schools became segregated, and African Americans had restrictions on testifying against majorities. In 1887, Jim Crow Laws started to arise, and segregation becomes rooted into the way of life of southerners (“Timeline”). Then in 1890, Louisiana passed the “Separate Car Act.” This forced rail companies to provide separate rail cars for minorities and majorities. If a minority sat in the wrong car, it cost them $25 or 20 days in jail. Because of this, an enraged group of African American citizens had Homer Plessy, a man who only had one eighth African American heritage, purchase a ticket and sit in a “White only” c...

    Read More

  • Inequality for African Americans

    1853 Words  | 4 Pages

    Toward the end of the Progressive Era American social inequality had stripped African Americans of their rights on a local and national level. In the 1896 Supreme Court case of Plessey vs. Ferguson, the Supreme Court sided with a Louisiana state law declaring segregation constitutional as long as facilities remain separate but equal. Segregation increased as legal discriminatory laws became enacted by each state but segregated facilities for whites were far superior to those provided for blacks; especially prevalent in the South were discriminatory laws known as Jim Crow laws which surged after the ruling. Such laws allowed for segregation in places such as restaurants, hospitals, parks, recreational areas, bathrooms, schools, transportation, housing, hotels, etc. Measures were taken to disenfranchise African Americans by using intimidation, violence, putting poll taxes, and literacy tests. This nearly eliminated the black vote and its political interests as 90% of the nine million blacks in America lived in the South and 1/3 were illiterate as shown in Ray Stannard Baker’s Following the Color Line (Bailey 667). For example, in Louisiana 130,334 black voters registered in 1896 but that number drastically decreased to a mere 1,342 in 1904—a 99 percent decline (Newman ). Other laws prevented black...

    Read More

  • Jim Crow Law: Plessy Vs. Ferguson

    136 Words  | 1 Pages

    In 1865, the 13th amendment had implemented which made slavery illegal in the United States. And in 1896, Plessy v. Ferguson — a Supreme Court decision which upheld the constitutionality requiring racial segregation in public facilities under the doctrine of “separate but equal”. Although the Declaration of Independence stated that “All men are created equal” and it seems that the U.S had made an effort to advocate equality through various acts, African Americans were treated differently than the Whites, especially in the South. Jim Crow Law was enforced until 1965 which decreed segregation of public schools, public transportation and public facilities. Although the African Americans felt that they were treated unequally, it was not until

    Read More

  • Power Of Judicial Review: Miranda V. Arizona

    1014 Words  | 3 Pages

    This case was brought to the Supreme Court with Plessey’s argument being that his 13th and 14th Amendments was being violated. But Louisiana argued that the 14th Amendment states that everyone is to be treated equally and that is exactly what happened. They said that the cars were separate but equal and that abided by the Constitution while keeping the Jim Crow laws. The Supreme Court decided that no law was violated and took the state’s side. The Court upheld Plessey’s conviction, and ruled that the 14th Amendment guarantees the right to “equal facilities,” not the “same facilities.” In this ruling, the Supreme Court created the principle of “separate but equal,”(“Judicial Review”,

    Read More

  • The Counterculture

    696 Words  | 2 Pages

    One of the most powerful counterculture movements in the sixties was the civil rights movement. In 1964, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act to end racial discrimination in employment, institutions like hospitals and schools, and privately owned public accommodations In 1965, congress returned suffrage to black southerners, by passing the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (Foner 926). In the case of Loving v. Virginia (1967), the Supreme Court ruled that laws prohibiting interracial marriage were unconstitutional (Foner 951). Because of the civil rights movement in the sixties, minorities gained more rights than they had prior to the 1960s.

    Read More

  • 13th Amendment Essay

    1609 Words  | 4 Pages

    Because of the 13th and 14th Amendments freeing slaves and granting equal protection under the law grants Jon the same rights to ride the train as any other citizen. Santa Clara County v. Southern Public Railroad, Even though the case was not about the 14th Amendment, Justice Morrison Remick Waite made it so by arguing that corporations must comply with the 14th Amendment. Santa Clara County v. Southern Public Railroad, 118 U.S. 394 (1886). Plessy v. Ferguson, Homer Plessy sat in a whites-only train car, he was asked to move to the car reserved for blacks, because state law mandated segregation. The court held that segregation is not necessarily unlawful discrimination as long as the races are treated equally. The impact of Plessy was to relegate blacks to second-class citizenship. Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896). However, this is not equal

    Read More

  • Brown Vs Board of Education

    800 Words  | 2 Pages

    When the civil war ended in 1865, Congress passed the 14th amendment that stated that all people born in the United States are considered citizens. The 14th amendment also states that individual states cannot make laws to take away a person's right to life, liberty, or property. Segregation laws made it legal to keep races apart as long as each race had its access to equal facilities, which was known as "separate but equal." This gave hope to some black parents that their son or daughter could get an equal education. One of the first lawsuits was in 1849 because five year old, Sara Roberts, had to walk past five Boston Elementary schools for whites only to get to the school she could attend. Sara's father filed a lawsuit against Boston, which was ruled that Boston had the right to segregate schools, and he had lost his case. However, in 1855, a law to end segregation in public schools was passed in Boston (Good, 26).

    Read More

  • Brown V The Board Of Education Impact On African Americans

    1991 Words  | 4 Pages

    Jim Crow laws, in U.S. history, statutes enacted by Southern states and munici-palities, beginning in the 1880s, legalizing segregation between blacks and whites (Woodward, 6). One of the most cited cases serving as the basis of Jim Crow was the Supreme Court case Plessy Vs Ferguson . The Court ruling in 1896 in Plessy v. Ferguson stated that separate facilities for whites and blacks were constitutional. This encouraged the passage of discriminatory laws that undermined and basically voided any progress that had been made on the behalf of blacks during the post civil war Reconstruction. These separate, but equal laws were passed for not only for railways and street cars, put for railways and streetcars, but eventually expanded to include almost all other aspects of life including public waiting rooms, restaurants, boardinghouses, theaters, hospitals, schools as well as many other public institutions. The general contention of the separate institutions created for blacks was that generally they were of inferior quality.

    Read More

  • Loving v. Virginia (388 U.S. 1)

    2066 Words  | 5 Pages

    Mr. and Mrs. Loving were residents of the small town of Central point, Virginia. They were family friends who had dated each other since he was seventeen and she a teenager. When they learned that marriage was illegal for them in Virginia, they simply drove over the Washington, D.C. for the ceremony. They returned to Virginia and were arrested the following month for violating the anti-miscegenation statute, which was declared in the Racial Integrity Act of 1924. Commonwealth’s Attorney Bernard Mahon obtained the warrant for Richard Loving and “Mildred Jeter”. Mildred’s maiden name was on the warrant because in Virginia a marriage between a white and black was considered void. In October 1958, the indictments of Richard Loving and Mildred Jeter were bought before the court and on January 6, 1959, Richard and Mildred pled not guilty to the charges. Changing their pleas to guilty and waiving their right to a jury trial due to fear and optimism for a favorable punishment, the Lovings took the plea bargain. The Circuit Court judge that was presiding over the case, Judge Leon M. Bazile, did not see favor on them and sentenced them to one year in jail. Yet, at the same time in agreement with the plea bargain, Judge Bazile suspended the sentence for 25 years provided that the Lovings would leave the state of Virginia immediately and not return together for the whole period. There was a catch, for when the 25 year period ends they would still face the prosecution of the court if they ever returned. He concluded his decision with this quote:

    Read More

  • Segregation In The Early 1900s

    918 Words  | 2 Pages

    Ferguson trial was a court case about a black man by the name of Homer Adolph Plessy. He was arrested for refusing to not ride in the ‘colored’ railway coach. Plessy had enough of the segregation so he decided to sit up in the white coach. However, it didn’t go well for him and he was arrested. On February 23, 1869, the Louisiana legislature passed a law prohibiting segregation on public transportation. The Government used the term ‘separate but equal’ as an excuse for not letting the blacks sit up with the whites. The supreme court case of Plessy v. Ferguson upheld a ‘separate but equal’ doctrine. “Laws permitting, and even requiring, their separation in places where they are liable to be brought into contract do not necessarily imply the inferiority of either race to the other. (Plessy v. Ferguson). So the blacks and white were now equal, but they couldn’t be together. The government said that the everything was equal when the school that the black children were in had old textbooks when the white school had new textbooks. The blacks and whites were separate but not so much

    Read More

  • Analysis of Law Cases

    1766 Words  | 4 Pages

    Facts: Two residents of Virginia, Mildred Jeter a colored woman and Richard Loving a white man, got married in the District of Columbia. The Loving's returned to Virginia and established their marriage. The Caroline court issued an indictment charging the Loving's with violating Virginia's ban on interracial marriages. The state decides, who can and cannot get married. The Loving's were convicted of violating 20-55 of Virginia's code.

    Read More

More about Plessy V. Ferguson Case Analysis

Open Document