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social changes in the 1960's
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Plessy v. Ferguson thesis statement
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Plessy v. Ferguson Brown v. Board Introduction Growing up in the post-Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, most US citizens have a broad and unspecific knowledge of this movement and its effects. Even fewer citizens know the causes and the driving factors of the movement. The Dredd Scott Decision, and Plessy v. Ferguson were two of the driving forces behind social change in the 1960s. There is a simple progression of American civil laws and the precedence they carry; likewise, the change in the American ideas of equality, and the interpretation of the 13th-15th amendments forged the way for these court cases to hold credence. Dredd Scott decision was handed down by the Supreme Court in 1857(Johnson). In the simplest terms this decision stripped US citizenship from any Negro, living in any state of existence, free or slave. Also Dredd Scott deemed the Missouri Compromise Unconstitutional (which is one cause of the South succeeding in 1863.) Almost thirty years later, and after the Emancipation Proclamation in1864, another enormously influential Supreme Court decision would be handed down. Plessy v. Ferguson was heard by the Supreme Court in 1896 that deemed it constitutional that those individual states could institute and enforce laws pertaining to the segregation of society using parameters of race and ethnicity. These two 19th century court cases produced a de jure means of ethnic discrimination. They paved the way for another half decade of segregation, hate, and mistreatment. The mutation and progression of civil rights and the idea of what it means to be “American” can be examined in the differences between Dredd Scott, and Plessy v Ferguson compared with Brown v. Board of Education. This case was heard and decided ... ... middle of paper ... ...Separate Education is Not Equal Education”. Historic U.S. Court Cases: An Encyclopedia. Ed. John W. Johnson. 2nd ed. Vol. 2. New York: Routledge, 2001. Print. Hall, Kermit L. “”They Have No Rights”” . Historic U.S. Court Cases: An Encyclopedia. Ed. John W. Johnson. 2nd ed. Vol. 2. New York: Routledge, 2001. Print. Hudgins, H.C. Jr. The Warren Court and the Public Schools: An Analysis of Landmark Surpreme Court Decisions. Danville, Illinois: The Interstate, 1970, Print. Patterson, James T. Patterson. Brown v. Board of Education: A Civil Rights Milestone and its Troubled Legacy. New York: Oxford, 2001, Print. Telgen, Diane. Defining Moments: Brown Board of Education. Detroit, Michigan: Omnigraphics 2005. Print. O’Connor, Karen, Larry J. Sabato, Alexandra B Yanus. American Government: Roots and Reform. Indianapolis, indianna: Pearson, 2011.Print.
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.
Homer Plessy vs. the Honorable John H. Ferguson ignited the spark in our nation that ultimately led to the desegregation of our schools, which is shown in the equality of education that is given to all races across the country today. “The Plessy decision set the precedent that ‘separate’ facilities for blacks and whites were constitutional as long as they were ‘equal’” (“The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow”). The case of Plessy vs. Ferguson not only illuminated the racial inequality within our education system, but also brought to light how the standard of ‘separate but equal’ affected every aspect of African American lives.
Before the decision of Brown v. Board of Education, many people accepted school segregation and, in most of the southern states, required segregation. Schools during this time were supposed to uphold the “separate but equal” standard set during the 1896 case of Plessy v. Ferguson; however, most, if not all, of the “black” schools were not comparable to the “white” schools. The resources the “white” schools had available definitely exceed the resources given to “black” schools not only in quantity, but also in quality. Brown v. Board of Education was not the first case that assaulted the public school segregation in the south. The title of the case was shortened from Oliver Brown ET. Al. v. the Board of Education of Topeka Kansas. The official titled included reference to the other twelve cases that were started in the early 1950’s that came from South Carolina, Virginia, Delaware and the District of Columbia. The case carried Oliver Brown’s name because he was the only male parent fighting for integration. The case of Brown v. Board o...
“’The Supreme Court decision [on Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas] is the greatest victory for the Negro people since the Emancipation Proclamation,’ Harlem’s Amsterdam News exclaimed. ‘It will alleviate troubles in many other fields.’ The Chicago Defender added, ‘this means the beginning of the end of the dual society in American life and the system…of segregation which supports it.’”
The Plessy vs. Ferguson (1896) ‘equal but separate’ decision robbed it of its meaning and confirmed this wasn’t the case as the court indicated this ruling did not violate black citizenship and did not imply superior and inferior treatment ,but it indeed did as it openly permitted racial discrimination in a landmark decision of a 8-1 majority ruling, it being said was controversial, as white schools and facilities received near to more than double funding than black facilities negatively contradicted the movement previous efforts on equality and maintaining that oppression on
In order to understand the magnitude of the Brown v. Board of Education decision, one must understand the hardships that African-Americans had to endure. For example, the case of Davis Knight “illuminate[d] racially mixed communities [,] delineate[d] the legal and social responses to attempts at racial desegregation and black enfranchisement during the era of the New Deal and World War II” in 1948 (Bynum 248). Davis Knight was a 23 year old man from Mississippi who appeared to be a “white,” but indeed was a “black man, who later married a white woman by the name of Junie Lee Spradley” (247). The case was presented to the Jones County Circuit Court where Knigh...
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.”
Few things have impacted the United States throughout its history like the fight for racial equality. It has caused divisions between the American people, and many name it as the root of the Civil War. This issue also sparked the Civil Rights Movement, leading to advancements towards true equality among all Americans. When speaking of racial inequality and America’s struggle against it, people forget some of the key turning points in it’s history. Some of the more obvious ones are the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed slaves in the North, and Martin Luther King Jr.’s march on Washington D.C. in 1963. However, people fail to recount a prominent legal matter that paved the way for further strides towards equality.
Lastly, Dred Scott Case with the United States Supreme court fought freedom for the slaves in the American Legal System. In 1857, the court 's decision denied his plea and determined that no Negro,a term used to portray anybody that was African blood, was or could ever be a citizen. This decision also the reason for the Missouri Compromise, which set restrictions on slavery in certain U.S territories. The Northerners were outraged and the Dred Scott case became a reason to elect president Abraham Lincoln in 1860
African Americans are still facing segregation today that was thought to have ended many years ago. Brown v. Board of Education declared the decision of having separate schools for black and white students to be unconstitutional. As Brown v. Board of Education launches its case, we see how it sets the infrastructure to end racial segregation in all public spaces. Today, Brown v. Board of Education has made changes to our educational system and democracy, but hasn’t succeeded to end racial segregation due to the cases still being seen today. Brown v. Board of Education to this day remains one of the most important cases that African Americans have brought to the surface for the good of the United States. Brown v. Board of Education didn’t just focus on children and education, it also focused on how important equality is even when society claimed that African Americans were treated equal, when they weren’t. This was the case that opened the eyes of many American’s to notice that the separate but equal strategy was in fact unlawful.
Plessy vs Ferguson was a case in which it stated a precedent. In 1892, an African American named Homer Plessy did not give up his seat to a white man("HISTORY OF BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION"). He then got arrested and taken to jail. Plessy than went to the Supreme Court to argue that his Fourteenth Amendment was violated. However, the Supreme Court ruled against Plessy and set the precedent that “separate but equal” is really equal("HISTORY OF BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION") .
Board of Education; in which the court overturned the 1896 Supreme Court decision of Plessy V. Ferguson, which allowed for societal segregation. The Court made its decision based on the violation of the Equal Protection Clause found in the 14 amendment. The overruling of Brown was the catalyst that lead to the advancement of Civil
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.
Slavery in the United States was officially ended by the Civil War Amendments. The Civil War Amendments consist of 13th, 14th, and 15th amendment. The amendments were created to outlawed slavery and protected equality for emancipated slaves, especially African Americans. Although the equality for the African Americans were protected by the Civil War Amendments, but most of them were segregated and disenfranchise. The segregation getting stronger when Jim Crow Laws passed. This law legalized the segregation of a human based on race. The segregation occurred in public and private facilities, such as transportation, restaurant, drinking fountain, education, etc. Many cases about segregation brought to court. One of the case that important for the United States was about segregation in public schools. Brown v. Board of Education was one of the cases about education that brought to U.S. Supreme Court. This cases made big changes about racial and equality issues in the United States.
O’Connor, K., Sabato, L. J., Yanus, A. B, Gibson, Jr., L. T., & Robinson, C. (2011). American Government: Roots and Reform 2011 Texas Edition. United States: Pearson Education, Inc.