Separate But Equal

This question arose during trial, “if a State can prescribe, as a rule of civil conduct, that whites and blacks shall not travel as passengers in the same railroad coach, why may it not so regulate the use of the streets of its cities and towns as to compel white citizens to keep on one side of a street and black citizens to keep on the other?” surfacing an issue about the limits of segregation (U.S. Supreme Court). Predating the trial, the “separate but equal” doctrine from 1890 set precedent for much of our nation’s history as a guiding hand through this phase of segregation, but the limits were never truly specified. This policy allowed legal grounds for segregation and discrimination of colored people. Many court cases were decided by
The doctrine of “separate but equal” violated the 13th and 14th Amendments because ‘ex-slaves’ were not receiving equal representation of their rights as the 14th Amendment stated they legally have. “Separate but equal” was created by racist Americans in attempt to strip all non-white people in America of their newly instated rights. Post-Civil War, “there was enormous racial tension and considerable racial bias, throughout the country,” which led to the adoption of “separate but equal” (Block). This doctrine led to many unfair and not equal actions by white Americans in order to take away what they believed to be unearned and undeserved rights granted by the 14th Amendment. Under “separate but equal” in 1890, Louisiana passed the “Separate Car Act,” “in which ‘whites’ and ‘coloreds’ were not permitted to ride in the same railway car, unless there was only one car attached to the train—in which case, a physical barrier must be erected in order to separate the races,” which, once again, violated the 14th Amendment (Block). However, people of the Chinese race living as non-citizens in America were able to “ride in the same passenger coach with white citizens of the United States, while citizens of the black race in Louisiana, many of whom, perhaps, risked their lives for the preservation of the Union…are yet declared to be criminals, liable to imprisonment, if they ride in a public coach occupied by citizens of
Ferguson created a forever imprint on American History, since the decision supported the “separate but equal” claim. Everything that predated the case, Jim Crow laws, discrimination and racism, social inequalities, and the Separate Car Act, all contributed to Justice Brown’s final decision. These policies all also helped change the standard for the Brown v. Board case, which led to integrated lifestyles that America still possesses today. The verdict in the Plessy v. Ferguson trial shows how deep of an issue racism was in our country in the 1800s and how much the nation has changed to accept all