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. Mr. Plessy to be exact
was seven-eights Caucasian and one-eighth African American
blood. The amount of African American in his blood was
hardly discernable to say the least. He therefore felt he
was entitled to every recognition, rights, privileges,
and immunities secured to the citizens of the United States
of the of the white race by its constitution and laws, that
on June 7, 1892, he engaged and paid for a first class
passage on the East Louisiana Railway. The trip from New
Orleans to Covington, in the same state, and thereupon
entered a passenger train, and took possession of a vacant
seat in a coach where passengers of the white race were
accommodated, that such railroad company was incorporated
by the laws of Louisiana as a common carrier. It was not
authorized to distinguished between citizens according to
their race, but, the petitioner was required by the
conductor, under the penalty of ejection from the white
car, he was then imprisoned by the conductor aided by a
police officer, for no other reason than race he was
imprisoned. With the help of police officers they hurried
him off the train and took him immediately to the county
Parish's office. In New Orleans there held to answer a
charge made by such officer t...
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...ality of the two races, or re-establish a state of
involuntary servitude. Indeed we do not understand that the
plaintiff strenuously relies upon the thirteenth amendment.
This case was one that really brought about a reform
in civil right laws. It also gave the civil rights movement
a pretty good kick-start. This case was a sound decision 9-
0. This rare thing for 9 Supreme Court justices to agree
on a decision. But whereas they thought this decision would
end the entire civil rights dispute, the decision only
enraged blacks and civil rights activist into fighting
harder to correct the problems facing American society. I
feel that this is one of the most influential cases to ever
reach the Supreme Court. Without crucial decisions such as
these, I do not feel that our country would be where it is
today.
The People vs. Hall and Dread Scott Decision both were very interesting cases. Their similarities zoomed to expose the preamble of the Constitution and make the authors of it think over what they meant by "all men are created equal." This question is still present today, are all men created equal? Or does it mean by men, the white Americans with European decent?
Throughout history, segregation has always been a part of United States history. This is showed through the relationships between the blacks and whites, the whites had a master-slave relationship and the blacks had a slave-master relationship. And this is also true after the civil war, when the blacks attained rights! Even though they had obtained rights the whites were always one step above them and lead superiority over them continuously. This is true in the Supreme court case “Plessy v. Ferguson”. The Court case ruled that blacks and whites had to have separate facilities and it was only constitutional if the facilities were equal. this means that they also constituted that this was not a violation of the 13th and 14th amendment because they weren 't considered slaves and had “equal” facilities even though they were separate. Even if the Supreme court case “Plessy v. Ferguson” set the precedent that separate but equal was correct, I would disagree with that precedent, because they interpreted
Plessy v. Ferguson, 1896, is a landmark in United States Supreme Court’s decision in the United States, of state laws requiring racial segregation in private businesses, under the doctrine of separate but equal.
The court case of Plessy vs. Ferguson created nationwide controversy in the United States due to the fact that its outcome would ultimately affect every citizen of our country. On Tuesday, June 7th, 1892, Mr. Homer Plessy purchased a first class ticket on the East Louisiana Railroad for a trip from New Orleans to Covington. He then entered a passenger car and took a vacant seat in a coach where white passengers were also sitting. There was another coach assigned to people who weren’t of the white race, but this railroad was a common carrier and was not authorized to discriminate passengers based off of their race. (“Plessy vs. Ferguson, syllabus”).Mr. Plessy was a “Creole of Color”, a person who traces their heritage back to some of the Caribbean, French, and Spanish who settled into Louisiana before it was part of the US (“The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow”). Even though Plessy was only one eighth African American, and could pass for a full white man, still he was threatened to be penalized and ejected from the train if he did not vacate to the non-white coach (“Plessy vs. Ferguson, syllabus). In ...
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
Homer Plessy, who has seven-eighths Caucasian descent and one-eighth African descent attempted to sit in an all-white-railroad car in 1896. After refusing to sit in the black railway carriage car, Plessy was arrested for violating the Louisiana Separate Car Act, which required that all railroads operating in the state provide "equal but separate accommodations" for white and African American passengers, it prohibited passengers from entering accommodations other than those to which they had been assigned on basis of their race. Plessy went to court and argued that the separate cars violated the Thirteen and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution, which was made in order to abolish slavery and to enforce the absolute equality of the two races before the law. The judge of this time was John Howard Ferguson; he stated that Louisiana had the right to regulate railroad companies as long as they operated within state boundaries. Plessy was convicted and sentenced to pay a $25 fine. Plessy decided to appeal the decision to ...
Segregation in itself is an issue of legality, but this case especially was an unfair One. When segregation was the law it was brought up in the courts because segregation itself may clash with the fourteenth amendment, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside" (Compton's 6). This amendment states that all people born or naturalized in the USA are citizens. This would mean that Blacks are citizens and have just as many rights as any other citizen, but white lawyers and court officials found ways around this. They said that being a citizen doesn't have anything to do with equal rights between different races (Tourolaw). "The judge at the trial was John Howard Ferguson, a lawyer from Massachusetts who had previously declared the Separate Car Act `unconstitutional on trains that traveled through several states'. In Plessy's case, however, he decided that the state could choose to regulate railroad companies that operated only within Louisiana" (Virtualscholar1 1).
Plessy v. Ferguson , a very important case of 1896 in which the Supreme Court of the United States upheld the legality of racial segregation. At the time of the ruling, segregation between blacks and whites already existed in most schools, restaurants, and other public facilities in the American South. In the Plessy decision, the Supreme Court ruled that such segregation did not violate the 14th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. This amendment provides equal protection of the law to all U.S. citizens, regardless of race. The court ruled in Plessy that racial segregation was legal as long as the separate facilities for blacks and whites were “equal.”
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
New Orleans, Louisiana was a place of many races and mixed raced people. Interstate train travel was segregated there, called “Louisiana's Separate Car Act.” Many people didn’t think this was fair not only because was it discriminatory, but because there was no way to tell if a person was truly white or black because there were so many mixed people. In 1891 a group of Creole professionals in New Orleans formed the Citizens’ Committee to Test the Constitutionality of the Separate Car Law. In 1892, Homer Plessy, a ⅞ white and ⅛ black man, bought a train ticket and took a seat in the “white” car. Plessy was asked to get off the train or move to the “black” car. When he refused, he was arrested. This planned incident was to question the fourteenth
In 1896, the Supreme Court was introduced with a case that not only tested both levels of government, state and federal, but also helped further establish a precedent that it was built off of. This court case is commonly known as the case that confirmed the doctrine “separate but equal”. This doctrine is a crucial part of our Constitution and more importantly, our history. This court case involved the analysis of amendments, laws, and divisions of power. Plessy v. Ferguson was a significant court case in U.S history because it was shaped by federalism and precedent, which were two key components that were further established and clarified as a result of the Supreme Court’s final decision.
Plessy v Ferguson was a landmark case taken to the United States Supreme Court. The ruling of the case was important to the jurisprudence in the United States. Homer Plessy brought the case to the Supreme Court after the Louisiana Supreme Court did not rule in his favor. The 7-1 ruling in 1896 showed the effect of the Jim Crow laws on the two different races in the nation. The Plessy v Ferguson case shaped race relations for years to come. The Supreme Court’s decision put the judicial stamp of approval on segregation and the “separate but equal” doctrine.
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
In 1896, Supreme Court decided the fate of thousands of Americans in the Supreme Court case of Plessy v.s. Ferguson. Homer Plessy sat in the white designed railroad car,of which he purchased a first class ticket for, and was arrested because being 1/8 black he had violated the Seperate Car
Throughout American History, many minorities have fallen victim to cruel discrimination and inequality, African Americans were one of such minorities that greatly suffered from the white majority’s upper hand. After the end of the Civil War and the Reconstruction period following it, many people, especially the Southern population, were extremely against African Americans obtaining equal rights in the American society. Due to this, these opponents did everything in their power to limit and even fully strip African Americans of their rights. The Supreme Court case of Plessy v Ferguson in 1896 is an excellent example of the obstacles put forth by the white population against their black counterparts in their long and arduous fight for civil liberty and equality. Even though the court upheld the discriminatory Louisiana law with an 8-1 decision, John Marshall Harlan’s dissent in the case played a significant role in the history of the United States for it predicted all the injustice African Americans would be forced to undergo for many more years, mainly due to this landmark decision.