How Did African Americans Change From 1865 To 1900

It wasn't until the year 1955 that segregational acts like having separate schools for blacks and whites was declared unconstitutional. In cases like Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Board of Education segregation took a huge part in making these cases. In Plessy v. Ferguson the main idea of the case , the rulings, mad the precedents it set for the country will be explained. In the case of Brown v. Board of Education the main point of the case, the opinion, and how these two cases are similar will be explained. These cases set huge precedents for the whole country during this time period.

Plessy Against The Court Think of a time when people were separated by the way they looked and the way they were born. During the twentieth century, many African Americans were discriminated because of their race and were separated from others in many ways. Others would determine where they belonged in society by the color of their skin. At this time, state legislatures promoted an act called the “Separate Car-Act” supporting that the 13th and 14th Amendment do not count against transportation separation. A man named Homer Plessy tested how far it takes to change the way the South is controlled.

For instance, “the Court endorsed the ‘separate but equal’ doctrine, ignoring the fact that blacks had practically no power to make sure that their "separate" facilities were "equal" to those of whites” (Buchanan). These laws denoted the strong disliking of blacks, and it showed the unfairness of the separate but equal laws that segregated blacks from whites. Moreover, the discrimination against blacks was demonstrated throughout the Plessy v. Ferguson

In the "Alice Paul and the Struugles for Women 's Suffrage" and in "From Briggs v. Elliott to Brown v Bored of Education" both by an unknown author, have the same similarities due to the fact of Civil Rights Movement in the U.S. But there is also differences in both of the passages. In the passage "Alice Paul and the Struugles for Women 's Suffrage" by an unknown author. This author aurges about the womens right to vote in the late 1940s. According to the article it states, "As the U.S. Constitution was written, it did not give women the right to vote.

Background For over half a century leading up to Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), racial segregation had become commonplace in United States. This segregation was present not only in the schools, but many other public and private facilities as well. This legal policy and general acceptance of racial roles was upheld by court case Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896). This case endorsed the United States Constitutional doctrine of “separate but equal” justifying and permitted the racial segregation of public facilities. It was believed that “Separate but equal” did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution to the United States Constitution that guarantees equal protection of all United State’s

The case occurred when Homer Plessy refused to sit in the Jim Crow car, which violated the Louisiana law and was put before Judge John H. Ferguson to challenge whether the state law conflicted with the Constitution or not. Indeed, in 1896, Ferguson concluded that the law was merely a legal distinction between two races and did not conflict with 13th amendment law. Society then adopted a system of “separate but equal” that emphasized separate facilities for blacks and whites

When Homer Adolph Plessy, who was one-eighth black, tested this law by taking a seat in the white-only section of a Louisiana Railway train, he was arrested. Plessy contended that the segregation law violated his rights under the Fourteenth Amendment (Newton, 2006). The case was appealed up to the U.S., Supreme Court in 1896. The Court ruled in a 7 – 1 vote upholding the Louisiana Statute, although associate justice John Marshall Harlan wrote a dissenting opinion. In his dissent, he wrote that “Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens…

Despite the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment, the southern state legislatures passed their own laws to continuously oppressing the blacks because they believed in their white supremacy. For example, they passed the Jim Crow Laws in the late of 19th century, that was right after the Reconstruction time in which the laws separated and prohibited freed blacks from sharing public areas and transportation. Because of many disadvantages, black people started to fight back the unjust law system and demanded to be treated equally even though it was not an easy task because of the legality of racial discrimination. For example, the Supreme Court set its ruling in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson in 1892 that protect state racial isolation and the policy of “separate but equal” with the vote 8-1. In the argument of the majority, Justice Henry Billings Brown affirmed the distinction of race cannot be eliminated, and therefore, they cannot stay at the same place as the Fourteenth Amendment’s suggestion.

In the early 1900’s America as a country was going through a reconstruction as they just overcame a four year battle that split the country into free and slave states. . Race played a big factor in this reconstruction, because before the civil war wealthy whites were able to own slaves. Slaves were supposed to gain their full freedom after the civil war, but they never really gained it. Many opportunities opened for Americans, and as the country became one again.

The concept of citizenship and belonging is much different in today’s society than it was in 1865 to 1910. The black codes of 1865 were laws of the south basically keeping blacks from full freedom. They did everything possible to keep blacks working for little to nothing. The blacks they are trying to keep down at this point were named the freedmen. The disfranchisement began with Mississippi in 1890, where they took blacks voting rights under something called the Mississippi Plan.

Plessy vs. Ferguson and Brown vs. Board of Education In 1890, the state of Louisiana passed the "Separate Car Act." This act required and established the use of the notorious doctrine "separate, but equal." This meant that on railroads and train cars, blacks and whites could be separated as long as the divided facilities were equal and the same. It was like a way to segregate blacks and whites without being morally wrong.

For nearly a century, the United States was occupied by the racial segregation of black and white people. The constitutionality of this “separation of humans into racial or other ethnic groups in daily life” had not been decided until a deliberate provocation to the law was made. The goal of this test was to have a mulatto, someone of mixed blood, defy the segregated train car law and raise a dispute on the fairness of being categorized as colored or not. This test went down in history as Plessy v. Ferguson, a planned challenge to the law during a period ruled by Jim Crow laws and the idea of “separate but equal” without equality for African Americans. This challenge forced the Supreme Court to rule on the constitutionality of segregation, and in result of the case, caused the nation to have split opinions of support and

The Civil War and the period of Reconstruction brought significant political, social, and economic changes to American society, and these effects continued into the 20th century. Post Civil War (After the Civil War – The period after the Civil War) - President Abraham Lincoln and Congress were determined to rebuild the nation. Lincoln wanted to restore the Union by readmitting the southern states that had seceded, as well as provide African Americans with more rights. Period of Conflict -

The ruling thus lent high judicial support to racial and ethnic discrimination and led to wider spread of the segregation between Whites and Blacks in the Southern United States. The great oppressive consequence from this was discrimination against African American minority from the socio-political opportunity to share the same facilities with the mainstream Whites, which in most of the cases the separate facilities for African Americans were inferior to those for Whites in actuality. The doctrine of “separate but equal” hence encourages two-tiered pluralism in U.S. as it privileged the non-Hispanic Whites over other racial and ethnic minority

Post Civil War, African Americans started to gain rights to gain rights, and soon gain rights equal to whites. While there were some people/things standing in their way (KKK, Black Codes), in the end they got what they needed; Equality. Many acts and laws were passed to aid the new rights now held by African Americans, as well as the numerous people willing to help. New Amendments were added to give African Americans rights after the war, all giving them some equal rights to whites. The first of the three added was the Thirteenth Amendment, it gave African Americans freedom from slave owners, and stated that no one could be kept as a slave in the U.S..