Plessy Vs Ferguson Vs Brown Vs Board Of Education Essay

The U.S.A. was founded on the idea of racism when it first began. Black people were boated over from Africa and enslaved to help build it to what it is today. Americans used them to do all of their work without giving them anything in return and separated them from everyone else. In history there have been many cases that have made an effort to abolish segregation. Two cases that didn't just make an effort, but did just that were Plessy vs. Ferguson and Brown vs. Board of Education. They were related to each other as well because one changed the precedent established in the other. They also helped the country identify more with freedom than slavery. The Plessy vs. Ferguson case happened in 1892 and was about a man named Homer Plessy who was an octoroon. He bought a ticket and sat in a whites only railroad car. This happened two years after a law called the Separate Car Act was put into effect. He was arrested for violating it but didn't want to face the penalty of it which was a fine of $25 or 20 days in jail so he went to court($25 in 1892 inflates to $657.89 today). He argued that it violated the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution. He lost twice in the lower courts, then decided to take it all the way to the Supreme Court. In a 7-1 decision, the Supreme Court ruled against Plessy and rejected his Amendment
Ferguson and Brown vs. Board of Education are related because they both have to do with the Fourteenth Amendment and the separate but equal doctrine. Plessy vs. Ferguson established the separate but equal doctrine and the precedent for all the cases that followed it. Brown vs. Board of Education was one of the many cases that followed it and it finally changed the precedent of separate but equal. It took sixty years, but once a precedent is established it is extremely hard to change it. This was an issue that could have been resolved the first time, but it was worth the wait. They are the reason why segregation was