The Segregation for Separate but Equal

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The Segregation for Separate but Equal 'Separate but equal' was an expression often used in the early 20th Century to describe segregation - keeping black and white people apart. Segregation was made legal in 1896, but had actually been going on for some time before that. White Americans living in the South (13 states in the Southeast USA) were determined to keep the black population under control. So states in the South passed laws - even though the US is governed by Federal Law, each of the 50 separate states can make their own laws that only affect that state. Southern states such as Texas, Florida and Alabama passed laws between 1870 and 1900 which were known as Jim Crow laws, and kept black and white people apart. The Federal Government in the more powerful North of the country didn't like Jim Crow laws but did nothing stop them. Then on June 7th 1892 a black shoemaker called Homer Plessy was jailed for sitting in a white seat on the East Louisiana Railway. He took his case to the State Court, and it eventually went all the way to the Supreme Court, the most powerful court in America. In 1896, Plessy lost again, and at the end of his trial the judge made a very important ruling. He said that segregation laws were acceptable in any state that wanted them, and that separate facilities for whites and blacks were legal - as long as they were equal. So separate was now ok - it just had to be equal. So although 'separate but equal' was now supposed to be the status of black and white Americans, but of course that wasn't usually the case. Almost everything was segregated, there were very few places in the South where black and w... ... middle of paper ... ...heir skin. Homer Plessy, the man who first opposed Jim Crow laws was in fact â…ž white, but he was deemed below the white man who wanted his seat just because his skin was a little darker. Segregation laws would continue for over 50 years, and until they were abolished, black Americans would always have a lesser existence to whites. They were never thought of as equal to the whites, and the lives they were forced to live by Jim Crow laws were certainly not equal either. One black man summed it up when he said, "In reality a lot of effort was made to keep us separate, but not much was done to make us equal." His words undoubtedly paint a more realistic picture of Jim Crow laws than those of the Supreme Court or President Wilson, and tell us the harsh reality of segregation - they were separate, but definitely not equal.

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