The Sherman Antitrust Act: Plessy V. Ferguson

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 antitrust law began when the United States Congress passed the very first antitrust laws in 1890. These laws were called the Sherman Act. The Sherman Act was a “comprehensive character of economic liberty aimed at preserving free and unfettered competition as a rule of trade.” These Laws existed for many years. However, in 1914, the United States Congress decided to pass and add two new laws to the antitrust laws. The two new laws consist of the Federal Trade Commission Act, and later created the FTC, and the Clayton Act. Today, the Antitrust law still consist of three laws and these are the last three mentioned above.

The Sherman Anti-Trust Act had many organized competition that led to manipulation of prices. Big businesses were involved with this manipulation. The accusations were that small groups of people would take control over businesses to gain more power by monopolizing prices hence the Sherman Anti-Trust Act came into place. There also were many complications with this act which would cause many arguments about power and finances. There were many things that went wrong like small groups of people had more power than others through there big business, small businesses lost resources, and there was no room for other small businesses to grow.

Ferguson had an unbelievable amount to do with the case of Brown v. Board of Education. The court case, involving Brown v. Board of Education took place in the year 1954. It was filed against the Topeka , Kansas school bored by Oliver Brown who was a parent to a child that was denied admission at a white school in Topeka. Brown argued that the racial segregation in Topeka disobeys the constitutions Equal Protection Clause. He states this because he did not believe that Topeka’s white schools and black schools were equal. The Court declined his argument. The Court determined that the segregated schools were considerably equal enough under the Plessy doctrine.

Ferguson case is important for US because this case has establish the “Separate but equal” clause to the US citizens. By that clause it makes the citizens have a wrong doctrine about the meaning of those sentences. They more likely to do a segregation, because of the black race in inferior they think they the facility that they have from the state is bad like in public transportation they get at the back area of the railway coach and the toilet are bad, but in public area that used by the white race the facility are more exclusive there is a cafe in the railway coach and get more exclusive service from the railway waiter. That wrong doctrine make US citizens make the segregation legal in united states and the black race still gate discrimination. What make the Justice felt that they were justified in ruling the way they did? It is because they have right to do it and they have some reason shows if both race cannot be in the same place because there will be a problem if they become in the same area so then the supreme court want to make a peace between both race than they separate them like in transportation, while actually the government give same facility for both race since the white race usually have more money than black race than they seems like get more good facilities than black race and it dose not mean the white race can discriminate the black race. At the end the Plessy v. Ferguson make the segregation are legal because of the wrong doctrine that made by the sentence “Separate but

Plessy vs. Ferguson was a case that attempted to prove that the Jim Crow lawintervened with the fourteenth amendment in May 18, 1896. To give you a brief description about the Fourteenth Amendment, The Fourteenth Amendment was ratified on July 9, 1868 in the US Constitution. The Fourteenth Amendment broad goal was to ensure that the Civil Rights Act passed in 1866 would remain valid ensuring that "all persons born in the United States..." people that are born in the United States of America are given citizenship. Also, born citizenship provides "full and equal benefit of all laws."

One would think that by now in 2016, the United States would be the land of equal opportunity, but sadly America is still trapped in time in the 1850s. The 1850s was the period of Reconstruction when African Americans were supposedly given their freedom. Although African Americans were given freedom, they still were not given the same equality as whites. They were treated differently than the whites. Laws in the southern states kept the African Americans from growing economically, socially and educationally. Keeping African Americans separate and not treating them equally lead to even more discrimination later. After reconstruction, African Americans were in as much danger as when they had been as slaves, sometimes even more. Reconstruction

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. In 1892 Homer Plessy was able to buy a white person first-class ticket on the East Louisiana Railroad boarded in the whites only car.

For centuries people of African descent have suffered of inhumane treatment, discrimination, racism, and segregation. Although in the United States, and in other countries, mistreatment and marginalization towards African descendants has stopped, the racism and discriminations has not. Unfortunately, there have been events proving such statement and it is upsetting to know that after all the decades of fighting for equality this is still an issue for blacks, especially for African-Americans living in our country.

Plessy v Fergusen was yet another court case where “separate but equal” was not implementing equality. It showed that they still thought of Black men and women as being less and not deserving the same rights as the White men. Homer Plessy was a free man, that was mainly White and because of a percentage he had of being Black he was treated as a Black man. He tried to sit in the train car of the White men and much like Rosa Parks was asked to go to the back where the Black men belonged in a different car. This case resulted in the Supreme Court defending the decision of the East Louisiana Railroad stating that they weren't violating any law by the ruling they had. This court case showed that even if Plessy was a part White because he was a part

Ferguson. Plessy v. Ferguson is known as the case that put Jim Crow laws on the map and with is an era of discrimination and segregation in the United States. The case was brought to the Supreme Court in 1896, Mr.Plessy was a man from Louisiana who went on a train and took an empty seat where white people were normally accommodated , the interesting tidbit was that the rail line had no policy of distinguishing passengers based off of race or ethnicity. However a conductor of the train went up to Mr. Plessy and told him to move with the threat of ejection and or imprisonment. After refusing to move from his seat he was arrested and was taken to court to talk of issues regarding racial mixing

Can separate really be equal? The landmark cases Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Board of Education show two sides of an argument that changes the way many people see things today. The Plessy v. Ferguson case set the precedent that segregation was legal when Homer Plessy was convicted for sitting in the white compartment of a train. The Brown v. Board of Education case tore down this precedent when it started the desegregation of schools after two girls had a dangerous walk to their all blacks school everyday. These two cases changed court precedents greatly, one setting a precedent, and the other tearing it down. Without these cases, segregation might still be prevalent in America today.

Discrimination may not seen as big a problem today, but people had to fight for that problem, and court cases set precedents for today. The case of Plessy versus Ferguson and Brown versus Board of Education helped change the way we view discrimination today. The case of Plessy versus Ferguson decided that segregation was legal as long as everything was equal. But on the other hand, Brown versus Board of Education included separate but equal schools made African-American children feel inferior to the white children.

The South was completely reconstructed after the Civil War. The North had won the war, and now the south did not know what to do with the peace. Almost four million slaves were freed, politics were dominated by Republicans, transportation had been messed up due to the war, and the economy was in shambles. There are numerous significant moments and important matters of the time known as the reconstruction of the south, but there are four specific occurrences to be discussed in this paper. Those are The 13th Amendment, The Civil Rights Act of 1875, The Compromise of 1877, and The Plessy vs Ferguson case (1876).

The US was under heavy control of a lot of trusts that were ran and were worth a lot of money. Standard Oil had a ton of products they were producing which made them have better control on the railroad, because they were the biggest lube manufacturer for the railroads. In the first presidential election of the 19th century the biggest issue in the election was trusts. The main reasons Standard Oil was broken up was because of the Sherman Antitrust Act and Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey v. United States.