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How Did Homer Plessy Use To Improve American Life

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Homer Plessy, angered because of segregation laws in the 1890’s, specifically opposed the Separate Car Act. This allowed for a “whites only” car in trains. As a civil rights activist, Homer believed that the rights granted to him by the 13th and 14th amendments were being violated. Although mostly white, Plessy fought for equality for everyone. The passing of new segregation laws in the South spurred Plessy into action. Plessy was an active reformer from 1892, when he publicly opposed segregation, to 1896, when the Plessy vs. Ferguson case finally ended after four years.

2) What methods did Homer Plessy use to improve American life?
Plessy’s shining moment of activism included civil disobedience. After purchasing a first class ticket on the East Louisiana Railroad, Plessy took his spot in the “whites only” car. Despite protesting, Plessy was kicked out of the train after refusing to move the the colored section. Because he had broken Louisiana law, Plessy was then jailed for the night before posting bail. After being convicted of violating the law, Plessy petitioned the Supreme Court of the United States. Here, Plessy legally fought against segregation.

3) What successes did Homer Plessy have in …show more content…

The South, home to most African Americans in that time, sought out ways to legally exclude African Americans. Homer Plessy had decided to test new segregation laws that had been passed a year earlier. A few months prior, Daniel Desdunes had also sat in the whites-only section, and his case had never made it to trial. However, in Plessy’s case, the Supreme Court was able to rule the new laws constitutional in a seven to one decision; “separate but equal” would be completely legal if both sections are equal. These laws led the way for the Jim Crow laws and would not be considered unconstitutional for almost 58 years in the Brown vs. Board of Education

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Homer Plessy was seven-eighths white and one-eighth black and agreed to test the constitution parts of the Separate Car Law. In 1892, Homer Plessy was arrested because he bought a ticket for a trip and sat down in an empty seat in a white-only train car. Hon. John H. Ferguson of the U.S. District Court dismissed Homer’s claims that his arrest was unconstitutional.

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The novel Passing of Nella Larsen held the historical and legal implications which can be seen through the judicial case of Homer Plessy who had one-eighth black and seven- eighths white. Plessy was forcibly jailed for sitting in the whites- only section on the railroad car in Louisiana. In 1896, at the Supreme Court, he argued that his black ancestry was insignificant and he was a white person by all definitions. The Supreme Court said that forcing Plessy to exclude from the whites section was against the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments about equal protection. However, Judge John Howard Ferguson affirmed that treating all people equally did not paralleled with eliminating social distinction based on colors.

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Notаbly absent from the opinion, as it was in Plessy, is any citаtion to a Supreme Court cаse that considered whether the prаctice of segregating schools was a violation of the Fourteenth Аmendment. It was an open question for the Court. The Court аdmitted that the precedent to which it cited involved discriminаtion between whites and blacks rаther thаn other rаces. However, the Court found no аppreciable difference here—"the decision is within the discretion of the state in regulating its public schools, and does not conflict with the Fourteenth Аmendment."

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The Court declined his argument. The Court determined that the segregated schools were considerably equal enough under the Plessy doctrine. It wasn 't until the mid twentieth century when Brown v Board of Education came into play that Plessy’s argument was given the okay by the constitution. The Court tried to use Plessy v. Ferguson to deny the argument that Oliver Brown was giving during the Brown v. Board of Education case. Once the Courts decided that separating children by race could have an overall affect on the black children 's ability to learn.

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Allison Krug English II Ms. Cuddihy January 24th, 2015 Plessy vs. Ferguson It might be hard to imagine but in 1896 people who sat in the wrong part of the passenger train were fined and/or jailed. Plessy vs. Ferguson helped pave the way for many anti racial discrimination laws. This Supreme Court decision helped to uphold the Statue of Louisiana acts of 1890, which required passenger trains to provide “separate but equal” accommodations for whites and colored races on its railroads which changed the rights to make separate facilities for both races to be constitutional as long as they were equal. This truly changed the Civil Rights Era forever.

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Plessy vs. Ferguson, one of the bigger cases in the turning point for rights, gave the black community a big boost forward. There was a man named Homer Adoph Plessy that had a problem with the way things were going at the time and he wanted equal rights. But there was another man named John Ferguson who thought that everything was just skippy. They went to court to settle their quarrel.

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The case involving Homer Plessy, who was brought before Judge John H. Ferguson of the Criminal Court in New Orleans originated in 1892 as a challenge to Louisiana’s Separate Car Act of 1890. The law required that all railroads operating in the state of Louisiana provide equal but separate accommodations for white and African American passengers and prohibited passengers from entering accommodations other than those to which they had been assigned on the basis of their race. It banned whites from sitting in the black cars and blacks in white cars and penalized employees for violating its terms, with the exception of nurses caring children of the other race. However there was an exception to this law that the law could not be applied to interstate

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In 1896, the Plessy v. Ferguson became of. The first reason, an incident in which African American passenger Homer Plessy refused to sit in a car for blacks. Then, he was brought before John Ferguson state law. Later, the Court then avoided discussion of the protection granted by the clause in the 14th Amendment. Also, It was a 7-1 vote but the argument was false because of the “assumption that the enforced separation of the two races stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority”.

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