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Separate but Equal?

Plessy V. Ferguson

Brown V. Board of Education

1865

"Black Codes"

: This was the name given to laws passed by southern governments established during the presidency of Andrew Johnson.

These imposed severe restrictions on freedmen, such as prohibiting thier right to vote, to sit on juries, and to testify against white men.

Civil Rights Act of 1866

Guaranteed Blacks basic economic rights to contract, sue, and own property.

1868

14th Amendment was

ratified!

Guaranteed that all persons born or naturalized in the United States are citizens of the United States and the state they live in.

No state shall take privilages and immunities of citizens, deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law, nor deny any person the equal protection law.

1887

Jim Crow Laws

The practice of comprehensive racial segregation known as "Jim Crow" emerged, and racial separation becomes entrenched.

In many cities and towns, African Americans were not allowed to share a taxi with whites or enter a building through the same entrance. They had to drink from separate water fountains, use separate restrooms, attend separate schools, be buried in separate cemeteries and swear on separate Bibles. They were excluded from restaurants and public libraries. Many parks barred them with signs that read "Negroes and dogs not allowed." One municipal zoo listed separate visiting hours.

1896

Plessy V. Ferguson

Plessy V. Ferguson

The state of Louisiana enacted a law that required separate railway cars for blacks and whites.

In 1892, Homer Adolph Plessy--who was seven-eighths Caucasian--took a seat in a "whites only" car of a Louisiana train

He refused to move to the car reserved for blacks and was arrested.

Is Louisiana's law mandating racial segregation on its trains an unconstitutional infringement on both the privileges and immunities and the equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment?

Against Plessy

The significance of the state enactments, to defeat the beneficent purposes which the people of the United States had in view when they adopted the recent amendments of the Constitution." The Plessy decision set the precedent that "separate" facilities for blacks and whites were constitutional as long as they were "equal." The "separate but equal" doctrine was quickly extended to cover many areas of public life, such as restaurants, theaters, restrooms, and public schools. The doctrine was a fiction, as facilities for blacks were always inferior to those for whites. Not until 1954, in the equally important Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, would the "separate but equal" doctrine be struck down.

1954

Brown V. Board of Education

Brown V. Board

Black children were denied admission to public schools attended by white children under laws requiring or permitting segregation according to the races. The white and black schools approached equality in terms of buildings, curriculum, qualifications, and teacher salaries.

Problems

Does the segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race deprive the minority children of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the 14th Amendment?

Yes. Despite the equalization of the schools by "objective" factors, intangible issues foster and maintain inequality. Racial segregation in public education has a detrimental effect on minority children because it is interpreted as a sign of inferiority. The long-held doctrine that separate facilities were permissible provided they were equal was rejected. Separate but equal is inherently unequal in the context of public education. The unanimous opinion sounded the death-knell for all forms of state-maintained racial separation.

Justices Decision?

Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children. The impact is greater when it has the sanction of the law, for the policy of separating the races is usually interpreted as denoting the inferiority of the negro group. A sense of inferiority affects the motivation of a child to learn. Segregation with the sanction of law, therefore, has a tendency to [retard] the educational and mental development of negro children and to deprive them of some of the benefits they would receive in a racial[ly] integrated school system.

Whatever may have been the extent of psychological knowledge at the time of Plessy v. Ferguson, this finding is amply supported by modern authority. Any language in Plessy v. Ferguson contrary to this finding is rejected.

We conclude that, in the field of public education, the doctrine of "separate but equal" has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs and others similarly situated for whom the actions have been brought are, by reason of the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. This disposition makes unnecessary any discussion whether such segregation also violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

1955

Brown II

On the last day of the term, the Supreme Court handed down Brown II, ordering that desegregation occur with "all deliberate speed."

Brown II was intended to work out the mechanics of desegregation.

Due to the vagueness of the term "all deliberate speed," many states were able to stall the Court's order to desegregate thier schools.

The legal and social obstacles that southern states put in place and encouraged, in thier effort to thwart itegration, served as a catalyst for the student protests that launched the civil rights movement

The End

(cc) photo by medhead on Flickr

Dissenter

Fuller, Field, Gray, Brown, Shiras, Jackson, White

It's Unanimous!

(cc) photo by medhead on Flickr

For Brown

Meet the Justices

Plessy V. Ferguson

Against Brown

Brown V. Board of Education

The etiquette of racial segregation was harsher, particularly in the South. African Americans were expected to step aside to let a white person pass, and black men dared not look any white woman in the eye. Black men and women were addressed as "Tom" or "Jane", but rarely as "Mr." or "Miss" or "Mrs," titles then widely in use for adults. Whites referred to black men of any age as "boy" and a black woman as "girl"; both often were called by labels such as "nigger" or "colored."

Justices Decision

1866

No, the state law is within constitutional boundaries. The majority, in an opinion authored by Justice Henry Billings Brown, upheld state-imposed racial segregation. The justices based their decision on the separate-but-equal doctrine, that separate facilities for blacks and whites satisfied the Fourteenth Amendment so long as they were equal. (The phrase, "separate but equal" was not part of the opinion.) Justice Brown conceded that the 14th amendment intended to establish absolute equality for the races before the law. But Brown noted that "in the nature of things it could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color, or to enforce social, as distinguished from political equality, or a commingling of the two races unsatisfactory to either." In short, segregation does not in itself constitute unlawful discrimination.

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