Landmark Cases In The Late 1800s And 1900's

In the late 1800s and 1900s, the United States was very different from how it is today. Not only were segregated schools the norm, but hotels, restaurants, bathrooms, and even drinking fountains were. This period, also referred to as the ‘Jim Crow era’ took place shortly after the abolition of slavery, and is characterized by high tensions between Americans with different skin colors, and several landmark cases, two of which will be explored in this essay. We start with the case of Plessy v. Ferguson, a landmark Supreme Court ruling in 1896. This case would go on to be extremely controversial, and eventually be overturned. To understand this case, we must first understand who all was involved. Firstly, ‘Plessy’, Homer Plessy; a citizen of the
Plessy, according to Britannica, “purchased a rail ticket for travel within Louisiana and took a seat in a car reserved for white passengers. After refusing to move to a car for African Americans, he was arrested and charged with violating the Separate Car Act.”. This was planned by him and the detective who arrested him. Shortly after being arrested, Plessy was bailed out and then began to form his case. At his initial trial, judge John H. Ferguson was unconcerned with his argument, and did not believe Louisiana's law to be unconstitutional. Plessy appealed his case to the state's supreme court, but was also denied. Plessy went on to appeal his case to the Supreme Court of The United States, and was surprisingly granted a chance to argue his case to the nine justices, which he did. The court ruled shortly thereafter, but not in his
The aforementioned excerpt of the court's decision seems to place the blame on the African American community itself. This case would go on to be used as a presidential reference for racist and unconstitutional laws in multiple states, also called ‘Jim Crow laws’. The decision essentially made segregation legal, and nullified the thirteenth and fourteenth amendments. However, in 1954 the court overturned its previous decision and “ concluded[d] that in the field of public education the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal”. This was a huge change, and absolutely life-changing for many African American children and families. The court ruled that even if the separate schools were physically equal, they still separated children based on color, causing feelings of inferiority, and ultimately violated the fourteenth amendment. As stated by the Constitution Center “Two justices—Robert Jackson and Stanley Reed—had concerns about the Supreme Court making a decision that would be better left to