Separate But Equal Analysis

"Separate but Equal". This was the phrase that indicated racial segregation in the 19th and 20th centuries by The Supreme Court's ruling known as Jim Crow Laws. Based on this controlling, the state and government enforced racial segregation between the colored and the whites. There was a long list of tasks the blacks were restricted from. This included riding in the same car as whites, interacting with whites, going to the same school as whites, etc. Albion Winegar was a famous carpetbagger from Maryville, New York. He was a writer, lawyer, and Radical Republican. He was the lead councel of the Citizens Committee to Test the Constitutionality of the Separate Car Law. Tourgee then decided to fight for racial segregation. On February 24th,
1892 Daniel Desdunes, a young black man from the Citizens Committee to Test the Constitutionality of the Separate Car Law, purchased a ticket from Nashville to Mobile. On his journey, Desdunes got arrested for sitting in a white car as planned and took the case to court with Tourgee and Creole attorney Lisa A. Martinet to fight for racial freedom, creating the Abbott v. Hicks case. Unfortunately Robert Marr, the judge of Supreme Court, had disappeared and closed the case, which led to John Howard Ferguson dismissing the case. Knowing that the previous case didn't work out, Tourgee asked another man willing to fight for Racial Segregation. On June 7th, 1892, Homer Plessy, a middle aged shoemaker, was heading towards East Louisiana to take a trip to New Orleans.
On his way there, Plessy was arrested because he considered himself to be 1/8 black and he refused to get off the train when asked to by the train conductor. Once Plessy was arrested and had the company of his lawyer Albion Winegar Tourgee, Tourgee argued that the Jim Crow laws violated the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments of the Bill of Rights, creating the Plessy v. Ferguson case. In response, Justice Henry Brown wrote, As Brown argues that the Fourteenth Amendment does not state that racial segregation is a crime, the Supreme Court judge John Howard Ferguson agrees with him and held the Louisiana segregation statute constitutional. The only man that supported Plessy in his fight was Justice John Harlan. He stated, From the tone of Harlan's voice, it is clear that he is ashamed by the citizens and criticizing them by calling them "color-blind". As a result, Ferguson established Plessy's petition for a writ of error as unconstitutional. The "Separate but Equal" doctrine continued to expand and eventually covered areas of theatres, restaurants, restrooms, and all other public places but by 1954, 50 years later, the Brown v. Board of Education destroyed the "Separate but Equal"
doctrine. In The Case of the Louisiana Traveler by C. Vann Woodward, the statement pointed out is focused on racial segregation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Through the failure of the Abbott v. Hicks and Plessy v. Ferguson cases, Woodward emphasizes Tourgee's courage and motivation to fight for racial segregation. Although he did not seem to succeed in the cases that he was majorly apart of, Tourgee influenced the future by supporting the morally and lawfully correct. He plays a major part of the success of the case of Brown v. Board of Education through his hard work and eager will to continue fighting for the freedom of the colored. Woodward sustains his argument by describing all the cases with detail and structure. With all the complications of fighting for freedom and not having support of the Supreme Court, freedom is finally free.