Plessy v. Ferguson*
I INTRODUCTION Plessy v. Ferguson, 1896, is a landmark case in which the Supreme Court of the United States upheld the legality of racial segregation. At the time of the ruling, segregation between blacks and whites already existed in most schools, restaurants, and other public facilities in the American South. The court ruled in Plessy that racial segregation was legal as long as the separate facilities for blacks and whites were “equal.” This “separate but equal” doctrine—as it came to be known—was only partially implemented after the decision. Railroad cars, schools, and other public facilities in the South were made separate, but they were rarely made equal.
II BACKGROUND
Immediately after the American Civil War ended in April 1865 the Southern states began to segregate blacks from whites in schools and other public facilities. Reconstruction, a period of rebuilding in the American South that lasted from the end of 1865 to 1877, put a temporary stop to these policies in some places. Blacks had won enough political power in the South during Reconstruction to prevent the passage of legislation designed to deny them access to public facilities. Also, after the Civil War the national government remained committed to upholding at least some degree of racial fairness. However, even during Reconstruction, most Southern schools were segregated and blacks were often forced to use inadequate public facilities.
After 1877 whites gained greater political control and eventually total political dominance of the South, and the national government did little to stop the worsening plight of Southern blacks. As a result, segregation gradually spread. By the mid-1890s railroad cars and other forms of public transportation had become segregated in a number of southern states.
III PLESSY AND THE LEGAL CHALLENGE The Plessy case grew out of a careful strategy to test the legality of a Louisiana law passed in 1890 that required railroads to maintain separate train cars for blacks and whites. In September 1891 a group of blacks in New Orleans, Louisiana, formed the Citizens Committee to Test the Constitutionality of the Separate Car Law and raised $3000 to mount a formal challenge to segregation in Louisiana. Albion Tourgee, then the nation’s best known white advocate of black legal rights, agreed to argue the case free of charge.
In June 1892 Homer A. Plessy bought a first-class ticket on the East Louisiana Railroad and sat in the car designated for whites only. Plessy was of mixed African and European ancestry, and he looked white. Because the Citizens Committee wanted to challenge the segregation law in court, it alerted railroad officials that Plessy would be sitting in the whites only car, even though he was partly of African descent. Plessy was arrested and brought to court for arraignment before Judge John H. Ferguson of the U.S. District Court in Louisiana. Plessy then attempted to halt the trial by suing Ferguson on the grounds that the segregation law was unconstitutional.
In 1896 Plessy’s challenge reached the U.S. Supreme Court, where Tourgee argued that segregation violated the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection of the law. Tourgee asserted that this amendments, along with the Declaration of Independence, protected all Americans from discrimination. He told the court that the 14th Amendment gave constitutional power to the Declaration of Independence, which he described as “the all-embracing formula of personal rights on which our government is based.”
The court rejected Plessy’s challenge by a vote of 7 to 1. Speaking for the court, Supreme Court Justice Henry Billings Brown declared that the 14th Amendment was adopted “to enforce the absolute equality of the two races before the law,” but he argued the amendment “could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color, or to enforce social, as distinguished from political equality, or a commingling of the two races.” Ignoring the reality of segregation in the South, Justice Brown denied Tourgee’s argument that “the enforced separation of the two races stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority.” Brown asserted that segregation was not discriminatory because whites were also segregated from blacks. Thus, if segregation made blacks feel inferior, “it is not by reason of anything found in the act, but solely because the colored race chooses to put that construction upon it.”
The decision in the Plessy case granted constitutional sanction to the “separate but equal” doctrine. As long as segregated facilities were equal they were permissible. In January 1897 Homer Plessy pled guilty to attempting to board a white railroad car and paid a $25 fine.
IV AFTERMATH By the time the court decided Plessy, the South was well on its way to creating a thoroughly segregated society. The Plessy ruling merely accelerated the process and provided it with legal sanction. Within a few years almost every institution or facility in the South was segregated. In addition to schools, street cars, railroads, hotels, and restaurants, southern states segregated sports arenas, telephone booths, and elevators. In some states blacks and whites could not fish on the same lakes, play baseball together, or shoot pool at the same establishment. The South used the decision to justify racial discrimination.
*Excerpted from Microsoft Encarta 2001
Assignment:
· Read the Plessy v. Ferguson & Brown v. Board cases (Plessy first)
· In 250-500 words, complete the following:
o Summarize the factual and Constitutional issues involved in both cases;
o Summarize the court’s arguments;
o Analyze how the final outcome affected public policy, as well as future interpretations of the Constitution.
· Use your own words, and follow the writing rubric.
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