Plessy Vs Ferguson Case

Plesssy v. Ferguson, Brown v. Board of education both dealt with one of America 's biggest problems segregation. Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Board of Education both delt with segregation, Plessy v. Ferguson was on the Louisiana rail road act, Brown v. Board of Education was on the separate but equal clause, and they were both related. In Plessy v. Ferguson was a dispute between on Louisiana rail road act which made it illegal for whites and blacks to sit together in a rail car. Homer Plessy was a man who severed as the vice president for the Justice, Protective, Educational and Social Club in New Orleans.

Suneri Kothari November 11, 2015 AP US Gov. Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka (1954) Background & Climate: This case occurred in 1950s, a period during which there was much racial segregation and inequality for colored people. Children attended different schools based on color: black children did not go to the same school as white children. There was also separation between the two races in other public places such as restaurants and trains. This segregation was legal in 1954 because of the “separate but equal” doctrine that resulted from the Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) case, among other factors.

Case Brief - Plessy v. Ferguson Homer A. Plessy v. John H. Ferguson was a US Supreme Court case between Homer Plessy, the plaintiff, and John Ferguson, the defendant. The year this case took was place was 18961. This case almost entirely deals with the Louisiana Law passed six years prior that provided “equal but separate” railway carriages for white and colored races. The constitutionality of this law was brought into this case as Homer Plessy, who refused to sit in the colored only rail car, argued it violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Thurgood Marshall was born on July 2, 1908. In 1930 he states for to the University of Maryland Law School but was denied because of him being black. However years later when he applied to Howard University when he graduated, he opens up a small law practice in Baltimore. Marshall won the first Major case in civil rights was due to the precedent of Plessy v Ferguson where it states racial segregation laws for public facilities under the doctrine of "separate but equal", where he sued University of Maryland Law School to admit a young African American named Donald Gaines Murray. With his well-known skills as a lawyer and his passion for the civil rights Marshall because the chief of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People,

Homer Plessy was a brave man willing to stand up against southern Jim Crow laws, and that is fate in the Supreme Court is unfair. The Separate Car Act dictates that separate races must sit in separate cars, which is segregatory, and passed by the state of Louisiana. This is in direct violation of the 14th, and rightfully deserved to be challenged. African Americans everywhere should be able to use their rights earned by four long years of bloodshed, and not be dampened by the courts. But the court overlooked the fact that it was an state law, and not private policy, and deemed the segregation private and thus legal.

An example of a Supreme Court overturning, would be Plessy vs Ferguson. States from the south had laws that had a disadvantage for black people. Plessy who is a light colored black, decided to sit on the white section of the train, and declared his ancestry a couple of minutes after. People demanded him to move, but he refused. He was arrested for not moving.

The nation was gridlocked on how to proceed, whether to declare a Civil War or not. The Fort Sumter conflict provided the answer; Fort Sumter was a garrison on the coast of SC that was being blocked by “Confederate” troops, therefore the Union could not provide military supplies and rations for the people inhabiting the fort. Later the confederates would fire upon fort and started the Civil war. The Civil War would last four years, concluding with the Confederate surrender at Appomattox Court House. However the time during the Civil War provided for many racial and slaveholding changes for America including: the Emancipation Proclamation, 13th, 14th , and 15th amendments.

The Brown vs Board of Education, the landmark Supreme Court decision was a historic win as it finally put the 14th amendment into practice. In terms of the impact it has had on social welfare. The case victory allowed for future programs, resources, services to be distributed among the African American students. Such as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 are services that include students of color. As we move forward more policy’s will be created keeping in mind on how to serve poor communities and how to build schools that can serve the community to reach out to young students in helping them strive regardless their race and economic status.

If a person from 1975 through to the present and see black and white people are studying in the same school and sitting together, the person might doubt that what he saw. “The case Brown v. Board of education happened on May 17, 1954 in the United States. Before this case, Plessy v. Ferguson case was adopted by the supreme court at 1896, which was segregation not violated the fourteenth amendment so that separate race is equal in law.” (Duignan) Even though Abraham Lincoln abolished slavery and gave black people the right to vote after he became the president of the United States in 1861, it does not lead to the equal between white and black at that moment.

One of the greatest Supreme Court decisions is Brown v. Board of Education. Children during the 1950’s were racially segregated in public schools which violated the Equal Protection Clause under the Fourteenth Amendment (“Brown v. Board of Education, par 1.) A significant amount of the United States had segregated schools in 1954 because the court case Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, states that segregated schools were constitutional as long as the black and white facilities were equal. The black families had to send their children to all-black schools that were usually miles away from where they lived. The schools were not as great as the white schools, and the buildings were often run down and dangerous.

The Supreme Court case, Brown vs. Board of Education 349 U.S 294, dealt with the segregation of black children into “separate but equal schools.” The Brown vs. Board of Education was not the first case that dealt with the separating of the whites and blacks in schools. This case was actually made up of five separate cases heard in the United States Supreme court concerning the issue of segregation in public schools. Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Briggs v. Elliot, Davis v. Board of Education of Prince Edward County (VA.), Boiling v. Sharpe, and Gebhart v. Ethel were the five cases that made up the Brown case. Thurgood, Marshall, and the National Association for the Advance of Colored People (NCAAP) handled these cases.

Brown v. Board of Education was a Supreme Court Case held in Topeka, Kansas, May 17th, 1954 declaring segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. It did end segregation in schools but problems followed shortly after including struggles with the Civil Rights laws, voting rights and bussing. The 15th amendment “grants all men the right to vote and shall not be denied on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude”. This was especially towards African American males in the South. Many Southern states tried to prevent them from voting by requiring that all male African Americans to pay a poll tax and take a literacy test which is a test of one’s ability to read and write.

Brown V. Board of Education was a court case that challenged the idea of “Separate but equal”, the cause of this court case was that there was segregation going on in certain areas such as stores, parks, and even schools. One of the major causes of this court case was the Plessy V. Ferguson court case. The idea of the Brown V. Board of Education court case was to challenge the “Separate but equal” policy. The separate but equal policy was the idea that blacks and whites are separated but are still equal.