Preview

Plessy Vs. Ferguson Case Analysis

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
148 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Plessy Vs. Ferguson Case Analysis
On June 7th, 1892 a light-skin African American named Homer Adolph Plessy was removed from a train In East Louisiana and detained by Detective Calhoun for being an African American train passenger on a train populated with Caucasians. According to the legality of the arrest, Plessy violated Louisiana’s Separate Car Act of 1890 which legalized segregation of public transportation in the state of Louisiana. The Plessy v. Ferguson case was eventually taken to the Supreme Court and in 1896 the groundbreaking decision was made from a 7-1 vote lead by Chief Justice Brown to legalize and constitutionalize segregation in the public/private sectors under the notion or doctrine of “Separate but Equal.” The Citizens Committee of Louisiana or Comite Des

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    Before the supreme court case Plessy v Ferguson was put into action African Americans and caucasians had separate everything, due to racial discrimination. Plessy v Ferguson began whenever a man named Homer Plessy was arrested for sitting in a “white only” car. After going to court multiple times with this case, the supreme court set the doctrine Plessy v Ferguson in place. The doctrine stated that it was constitutional to have separate facilities for both caucasians and African Americans as long as the facilities were “equal”.…

    • 317 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Plessy vs. Ferguson was a 1896 case brought to the United States Supreme Court. A…

    • 534 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Louisiana placed a law giving separate railway cars for blacks and whites. In 1892, Homer Plessy- 7/8 Caucasian, sat in a "whites only" car of a Louisiana train, and refused to move to the car for blacks and was then arrested. The Court had to decide whether the Louisiana law was unconstitutional under the 14th amendment. The Court ruled that the state law was within its constitutional boundaries. The majority of this case supported the state-imposed racial segregation. The Court based their final decision on the separate but equal doctrine and agreed that the state had separate facilities for blacks and whites, which were equal. Brown stated that the 14th amendment was imposed to provide complete equality of races before the law. In…

    • 3484 Words
    • 14 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    In 1890, the State of Louisiana passed Act 111 that required separate accommodations for African Americans and Whites on railroads, including separate railway cars, though it specified that the accommodations must be kept "equal".…

    • 589 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Chapter 6 discusses The Triumph of Racism. In this chapter there is an essay entitled, The Birth Of “Seperate but Equal” . This article describes the struggles that were continually encountered in the endeavor to gain racial equality. In particular the struggles of a man named Plessy and the advances that he helped to make are discussed and described. Homer Plessy was born free in March of 1862, in New Orleans. Although there were still definite segregations laws, New Orleans had fewer social restrictions about intermingling between whites and blacks, compared to other Southern states. In the years shortly following Plessy’s birth, the 13th Amendment, 14th Amendment and 15th Amendment were ratified, all dealing with the rights of all United States born citizens in regards to liberty, property, and the right to vote regardless of race, color, or previous conditions of servitude.…

    • 484 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The Separate Car Act 4. Plessy Case 5. The Verdict (Louisiana Supreme Court 6. Back to Ferguson’s Court An Eventful Ride…

    • 1907 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    In 1953, the first black student enrolled, as an undergraduate, at Louisiana State University. And in sixty-four years, several different races have had the opportunity to enroll and earn degrees from Louisiana State University, including myself. However, this was not always the case. There was a point in time where blacks and whites could not attend the same school, or even use the same facilities. The court decision that made separate facilities legal, was Plessy v Ferguson. It allowed for separate areas for blacks and whites, which forced blacks to create their facilities, like Historically Black Colleges and University. Later, in 1954, Plessy v Ferguson would be overturned, which allows all races to coexist in the same facilities today. I plan to explain…

    • 1184 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Plessy vs. Ferguson

    • 352 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The case of Plessy vs. Ferguson started when a 30-year-old colored shoemaker named Homer Plessy was put in jail for sitting in the white car of the East Louisiana Railroad on June 7, 1892. Even though Plessy was only one-eighths black and seven-eighths white, he was considered black by Louisiana law. Plessy didn't like this idea, and so he went to court and argued in the case of Homer Adolph Plessy v. The State of Lousiana that the Separate Car Act, which forced segregation of train cars, violated the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution. The Thirteenth Amendment was made in order to abolish slavery, while the object of the Fourteenth Amendment was to enforce the absolute equality of the two races before the law. The name of "Ferguson" was given to the case because the judge at the trial was named John Howard Ferguson.…

    • 352 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Plessy vs. Ferguson

    • 1227 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The case of Plessy vs. Ferguson started when a colored man named Homer Plessy was put in jail for refusing to move from the white car of the East Louisiana Railroad on June 7, 1892. Even though Plessy only one eighth black and seven eighth white, he was considered black by Louisiana law. Plessy didn't like the fact that he was considered black, he went to court to argued in the case of Homer Adolph Plessy vs. The State of Lousiana. The Separate Car Act, which forced segregation of train cars, violated the 13th and 14th Amendments to the Constitution.…

    • 1227 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    student in the Topeka, Kansas school district. Every day she and her sister, Terry Lynn, had to…

    • 882 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Before James Lawson and the big four civil rights groups, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) embraced using nonviolence as the main strategy to fight segregation, many Blacks engaged in civil disobedience as means of challenging racial injustice. One of the well-known act of nonviolence before the Civil Rights Movement was the case of Plessy v. Ferguson. Homer Plessy challenged racial segregation by buying a first class train ticket in Louisiana. Although he ultimately lost the case in the Supreme Court, his case shed lights on the issue of racial segregation. During World War II Blacks demanded for the desegregation of the regiments.…

    • 1179 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    These laws were called Jim Crow Laws. These segregation laws required that whites and blacks use separate public facilities. In the most influential case in 1896, Plessy v. Ferguson, the Supreme Court of the United States upheld a Louisiana law that required separate but equal facilities for whites and blacks in railroad cars. This decision influenced the "separate but equal" rule for more than 50 years.…

    • 541 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Overall, the Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court decision legalized segregation in the United States. This legalization was a powerful tool for lawmakers in the South in order to create more Jim Crow laws. These laws violated the rights of blacks outlined in the thirteenth and fourteenth amendments while segregating many aspects of daily life for blacks in the…

    • 501 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Plessy V. Ferguson

    • 194 Words
    • 1 Page

    Before Plessy v. Ferguson, there were separate railway cars for white and colored people. Homer Plessy was convicted of sitting in a whites-only car. He had white parents, but since he had black ancestry he was considered black. He argued that the Louisiana’s Separate Car Act of 1890 violated the Thirteenth Amendment, which required all people to be treated equally under the law. Therefore, the Court upheld this act, however, Justice Henry Brown claims that the abolition of slavery did not prevent states from making legal distinctions between races (Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), page 511). Based on Document 4, Separate Accommodation states that railway companies carrying passengers, they shall provide equal but separated accommodations for the…

    • 194 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the sole dissent of the Plessey v. Ferguson case, Justice Harlan proclaimed that “[o]ur Constitution in color-blind and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens” (Linder, 2016). Yet trials in America have long included conversations about race, such as with the infamous O. J. Simpson trial. Legal distinctions based on race are also frequently made, such as is done when considering college admission. These conversations and distinctions are allowed because in reality, neither the Constitution nor the American justice system are truly color-blind. Nor should they be; a color-conscious Constitution and justice system allow America an attempt to make up for past sins, such as the ruling of Plessey v. Ferguson.…

    • 722 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays