[May 18, 1896, decision 7-1]
The state of Louisiana enacted the Separate Car Act, which required separate-but-equal railway cars for blacks and whites. A group of prominent black, creole, and white citizens, who called themselves the Committee of Citizens, wanted to challenge the law.
The railroad also wanted to challenge the law, because it meant purchasing additional passenger cars. The Committee and the railroad enlisted Homer Plessy, who was 7/8 Caucasian and 1/8 black but qualified as black under Louisiana state law, to help orchestrate this challenge. The railroad hired a detective with arrest powers, who ensured Plessy was arrested for violating the Act, rather than something else like vagrancy.
In 1892, Homer Plessy bought a first class ticket and took a seat in a "whites only" car. He refused to move to the car reserved for blacks and was arrested.
Plessy argued that the Act violated his 13th [abolition of slavery] and 14th [equal protection] Amendment rights.
Ferguson wasn't really a party. He was the judge who initially ruled against Plessy in the Louisiana lower court.
The Supreme Court ruled that under the 14th amendment [Equal Protection], separate facilities for blacks and white were constitutional, so long as they were equal.
Justice John Marshall Harlan dissented, and predicted the court's decision would become as infamous as Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) [coming up in a future post].
Plessy v. Ferguson was never overturned by the Supreme Court. In the case of Brown v. Board of Education (1954), the US Supreme Court ruled only that segregation in public education was unconstitutional [“separate but equal education facilities are inherently unequal”]. However, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited legal segregation and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 provided for federal oversight and enforcement of voter registration voting.
Did you guess right?
Here's Wednesday's hint - J is for Juveniles. Can you guess the case [there are several, just guess one] and what it's about? Leave a comment!
I never liked the concept of "separate but equal", because separate is never equal.
ReplyDeleteVery true.
DeleteIt still seems like science fiction that people held these attitudes based on skin color.
ReplyDeleteI is for Illuminati
Back then, people had to fight to be considered equals. Still do sometimes.
DeleteInteresting read! I will be checking out more of your site.
ReplyDeleteEmily | My Life In Ecuador | Iguanas at our bedroom window
I'll check out your site too! Thanks for stopping by.
DeleteThis country still has a long way to go and it is not the only one.
ReplyDeleteWe've come a long way and we still have a ways to go.
DeleteWay to go, John Marshall Harlan. Way ahead of your time and standing up for your beliefs.
ReplyDeleteIt surprised me that the decision was never overturned. All this time, I've misunderstood Brown v. Bd. of Education. At least, partially misunderstood anyway.
Yep, I thought Brown overturned this one, until I took Constitutional Law in law school.
DeleteFeels like not much has changed...
ReplyDeleteCalen~
Impromptu Promptlings
A to Z Challenge Letter I
Sometimes it does seem that way.
DeleteReally, even only 1/8 of his genetics qualified him to have to move? I find the whole segregation thing nuts, but this even more so. Discarded Darlings - Jean Davis, Speculative Fiction Writer, A to Z: Editing Fiction
ReplyDeleteI agree with you, it's nuts.
Delete