Supreme Court Cases: The Modern Civil Rights Movement

Three Supreme Court Cases with Impact The modern civil rights movement has been affected by three very important Supreme Court cases. The first infamous case was the Dred Scott v. Sanford decision which dreadfully took away the rights of African Americans. Then the case of Plessy v. Ferguson was held in 1896 which had a major impact on the civil rights movement. This case decided that African Americans were “separate but equal”. Then finally the last infamous case was the Board v. the Board of Education which overruled the case of Plessy v. Ferguson. These cases made a huge dent on the civil rights movement and the equality laws we have instilled today. In 1847 the Dred Scott v. Sanford decision was made. This decision went all the way to
Board of Education of Topeka which reversed the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896. This changed America in that “separate but equal” was no longer a law. The NAACP or The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, called for a reconsideration of the Plessy v. Ferguson case and won. The case “raised a variety of legal issues on appeal, the most common one was that separate school systems for blacks and whites were inherently unequal, and thus violate the "equal protection clause" of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution” (United States Courts, 1). The case had decided that the main problem with the previous case was that the education systems for public schools were completely unfair. The white schools were given and used twice as much money to fund the schools compared to the “separate but equal” black schools. The completely changed the civil rights movement. Also the whole law was just completely unfair and not “separate but equal” because nothing was equal. This made everyone, at least by law, equal to each other. Not that everyone immediately followed this law once it became true but, this was a huge step in making everyone equal once again. Many forms of resistance appeared during and after these cases. In the later 1960’s and 70’s the Black Power Movement started to commence and get big to set forth the motion of this law. They did this by starting in the media and trying to get
The Dred Scott v. Sanford case being the beginning of these cases forced inequality to the max upon slaves. This decision decided that it was okay to transfer slaves to different territories and still be “owned” by their “owners”, denied the citizenship of African Americans. This case was the basis of the civil rights movement and the reason for there to be a need for a civil rights movement. The next case was the Plessy v. Fergusson which ruled that African Americans were allowed to be “separate but equal” and put into separate schools. This case inspired others to protest and stand up for their very much deserved rights that have been taken away from them. The final case was the Brown v. Board of Education case impacted the civil rights movement by giving people back rights they should have had in the first place. This case decided “separate but equal” was clearly not equal. Overall these cases show a step by step process of getting African Americans to have equal rights again and how they interacted along with the modern civil rights