W2 Assignment: Supreme Court Cases
On June7, 1892, Homer Plessy an octoroon, a half white and black man bought a ticket on the East Louisiana railroad in New Orleans hat was bound for Covington, LA. He sat in a “whites only” car and refused to sit in the black car even though he could pass for a white man. Plessy was subsequently arrested and jailed for violating the 1890 Separate Car Act. He was convicted and sentences to pay a $25 fine. The ruling was upheld by the Supreme Court based on the 14th amendment, seeing no way in which the Louisiana statue violated it. The Plessy decision set the precedent that “separate” facilities for blacks and whites were constituional as long as they were ”equal”.
Brown v Board of Education, the plaintiff Brown assessed that this system of racial separation of black and white Americans provided inferior accommodations, services, and treatments of black students. Thirteen parents of 20 children of Topeka, Kansas sued the school district to reverse its policy on racial segregation. Brown v Board of Education was a landmark US Supreme Court case in which the court declared the state laws established separate public schools for black and white students was unconstiutional on May 17, 1954. This decision also overturned the Plessy v Ferguson decision of 1896.
These verdicts are relevant today because segregation isn’t an issue in this day and age as well as school is no longer separated by color. Schools are equal, no one school is better than the next. Education is readily available to all people who wants an education.