Plessey Vs. Ferguson Case: Racial Segregation In The United States

History 150 01
April 09, 2011 Brown vs. Board From 1877 up to the middle of the 1960s there was organized racial segregation in the United States. This was achieved because it was thought that blacks were believed to be inferior to whites. This organized segregation was done by a series of changes to the law in the south known as the Jim Crow laws. The first time that the United States government made a ruling whether or not these laws were actually legitimate under the US constitution was with the Plessey v Ferguson case. They were upheld granting states the ability to institute segregation. Sixty Years later these same laws affected the Brown v Board of Education case and they were considered unconstitutional. The Plessey vs.
Ferguson case was the turn of the African- American revolution. The government came up with a way to keep blacks at a disadvantage. The Jim Crow laws were supported by many people with numerous professions, such as scientists, so-called Christian ministers, newspaper writers and evolutionists, even Darwin himself, and most conservative white democrats. The point of the Jim Crow laws was to ensure segregation and equality between races, although the laws were anything but equal. The Jim Crow laws were there to give whites the advantage and to make sure blacks stayed below. The laws affected anything and everything that could be segregated there where separate bathrooms, drinking fountains, living arrangements and even job opportunities. The biggest way the laws affected blacks was that they prevented blacks from voting. The only way blacks (men) were allowed to vote is if they were literate and most were thought to be illiterate because their parents were slaves. African-Americans could not even vote for equal opportunities. This law was called the grandfather clause. During that time African-American women had no rights at all.
The history behind the Brown vs. Board of Education case started in 1896 when the Jim Crow laws were put to the test by a man named Homer Plessey an octoroon/one-eighth African-American. Even though, he was only 1/8 black, Louisiana considered him black. Plessey was from New Orleans, and in New Orleans they didn’t have the same segregation problems. He thought he passed as white. Plessey refused to get up and go the colored section and was convicted for riding in an all white railway car. Seven out of eight jurors said that neither the thirteenth nor the fourteenth amendment was wrong in that case. The case of Plessey v Ferguson set the stage for the Brown v. Board case.
Before Brown vs.
Board in Topeka Kansas there were racial tensions in southern schools across the south. In 1951, Oliver Brown’s daughter Linda had to walk a mile just to get to the bus stop to take her to her to an all black school. There was no reason for Linda to have to walk all that way when there was an elementary school right in her neighborhood. Brown was outraged when he tried to enroll her in the neighborhood school and was not able to because it was against the law to integrate blacks and whites. Brown took things in his own hands and decided to take on a lawsuit. Brown got thirteen other parents together and fought against the law. His actions set the stage for the on-coming civil rights movement. Thurgood Marshall was hired to control the
case. Marshall had his own racial struggles to overcome. After high school he tried to get into the University of Maryland but at the time it was an all white school. So, he went to Howard University instead. After he graduated from Howard law school, he helped his dean integrate the University of Maryland. That law suit put Marshall in the perfect place because not soon after the Brown vs. Board case was on the rise and needed a lawyer. By 1954, Marshall was the head attorney for the black families involved in the Brown vs. Board case. Marshall must have been a pretty good lawyer because on May 17, 1954 the “Separate but equal” was ruled as violation of the fourteenth amendment. The decision to integrate was made by the Chief Justice Earl Warren. In the book “Brown v. Board of Education” By James T. Patterson, Earl Warren decided to take a trip to see the Civil war sites in Virginia. After traveling all day he checked into his all white hotel. He assumed his Chauffeur would find a place to go. The next morning he realized that he had slept in the car. That’s when Warren knew something had to change. The struggle to integrate the schools was not over yet.
Not everyone was happy about the new integration laws. Seventeen states required racial segregation of public schools. Although, Topeka Kansas was now integrated, segregation was pushed on the other local districts in the area. Little Rock was thought to be a liberal town. Most of the town was integrated. The public library, public parks and even the buses were integrated. In 1955 the Little Rock school board made a plan to try to integrate the public schools. The plan was called “The Blossom Plan” In 1957 The Blossom plan was in effect, nine students from Horace Mann High School enrolled in Little Rock Central High. The first day of school they were not even allowed to enter the school. The mob was so vicious and angry. The students were spat on, called derogatory names, threaten and one student even had acid thrown in her eyes. At the time Orval Faubus was the governor of Arkansas and was totally against the integration. For the first two weeks he sent the National Guard to stand outside the school doors to prevent them from coming in. During that time the nine stayed home and studied together. President Eisenhower physically came to governor Faubus house to force him to integrate the
school. Democrats tried to use these laws to segregate the south and it worked for years. Since then things have gotten better. There are no laws preventing blacks from going to separate bathrooms, drinking fountains or any other segregation law from the past. Now there are no written laws preventing blacks and whites from doing pretty much anything.

Work Cited
Cozzens, Lisa. "Brown v. Board of Education." Www.watson.org. 29 June 1998. Web. 08 Apr. 2011. .

Freyer, Tony. "Fifty Years Later." The Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture. Arkansas Times, 20 Sept. 2007. Web. 10 Apr. 2011. .

Kosher, Steven. The Civil Rights Movement. New York: Abbeville Press, 1996. Print.

Patterson, James T. Brown v Board of Education. New York: Oxford University Press, Inc, 2001. Print