Brown Vs Board Of Education

The Declaration of Independence states that "All men are created equal," however, this statement wasn’t necessarily true in the United States until after the Civil War. After the Civil War, in 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified and finally put an end to slavery. The Fourteenth Amendment strengthened the rights of newly freed slaves by stating, among other things, that no state shall deprive anyone of "due process of law". Finally, the Fifteenth Amendment strengthened the rights of newly freed slaves even more by prohibiting states from denying anyone the right to vote due to race. However, despite these Amendments, African Americans weren’t given the respect they deserved, especially in the South. Several states created Jim Crow laws that led to the segregation of blacks and whites. Blacks and whites could not attend the same schools, use the same public restrooms, and couldn’t use the same entrances. Although many people felt that these laws were unjust, it was not until the 1890s that they were directly challenged in court. In 1892, Homer Plessy, an African American, was jailed for sitting in a “white” car on a train (History of Brown v. Board of Education. n.d.). Plessy contended that this was unconstitutional and was one of the first persons to bring the issue of racial segregation to the Supreme Court. In the case of Plessy v. Ferguson, Justice Henry Billings Brown, writing the majority opinion, stated that: "The object of the [Fourteenth] amendment was undoubtedly to enforce the equality of the two races before the law, but in the nature of things it could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color, or to endorse social, as distinguished from political, equality. . . If one race be inferior to the other socially, the Constitution of the United States cannot put them upon the same plane." (History of Brown v. Board of Education, n.d.)The court ruled against Plessy. With this decision came the separate but equal doctrine. The