[41], New Orleans historian Keith Weldon Medley, author of We As Freemen: Plessy v. Ferguson, The Fight Against Legal Segregation, said the words in Justice Harlan's "Great Dissent" were taken from papers filed with the court by "The Citizen's Committee". supported the right of women to vote. Cunningham was a staunch supporter of white supremacy, who according to a laudatory 1916 obituary "worked so effectively [during Reconstruction] in restoring white supremacy in politics that he finally was arrested, with fifty-one other men of that community, and tried by federal officials."[20]. Source: Plessy v. Ferguson, 163, U.S. 537 (1896). On June 7, 1892, Homer Plessy agreed to be arrested for refusing to move from a seat reserved for whites. African Americans can not have the same protections as other people Separate but equal facilities All facilities must be integrated Separate but unequal facilities. When Judge John H. Ferguson ruled against him, Plessy applied to the State Supreme Court for a writ of prohibition and certiorari. Brewer did not participate in the case because he had left Washington just before oral arguments to attend to the sudden death of his daughter. [43], The separate facilities and institutions accorded to the African-American community were consistently inferior[45] to those provided to the White community. The judgment of the court below is, therefore, affirmed. In the Criminal District Court for the Parish of Orleans, Tourgée argued that the law requiring “separate but equal accommodations” was unconstitutional. [11] The railroad company, which had opposed the law on the grounds that it would require the purchase of more railcars, had been previously informed of Plessy's racial lineage, and the intent to challenge the law. . [43] The principles of Plessy v. Ferguson were affirmed in Lum v. Rice (1927), which upheld the right of a Mississippi public school for white children to exclude a Chinese American girl. Separate but equal was a legal doctrine that existed in the United States for 58 years. answer choices . The power to assign to a particular coach obviously implies the power to determine to which race the passenger belongs, as well as the power to determine who, under the laws of the particular state, is to be deemed a white and who a colored person. [50], In 2009 a marker was placed[12] at the corner of Press and Royal Streets, near where Plessy had boarded his train. supported the right of workers to join unions. But in view of the constitution, in the eye of the law, there is in this country no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens. The Court ruled in favor of separate areas for blacks and whites as long as they were equal, a decision which would prove to hold for almost 60 years until being overruled. Plessy then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which agreed to hear his case. The Plessy decision, excerpted below, was written by Justice Henry Billings Brown. Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) Name: Reading Breaking the Rules You may have heard the saying, “Some rules are meant to be broken.” In 1890, a man named Homer Plessy broke the rules. Box v. Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky, Inc. Monell v. Department of Social Services of the City of New York, Will v. Michigan Department of State Police, Inyo County v. Paiute-Shoshone Indians of the Bishop Community, Fitzgerald v. Barnstable School Committee. [31] The doctrine had been strengthened also by an 1875 Supreme Court decision that limited the federal government's ability to intervene in state affairs, guaranteeing to Congress only the power "to restrain states from acts of racial discrimination and segregation". The Plessy decision set the precedent that "separate" facilities for blacks and whites were constitutional as long as they were "equal." Brown . Start studying Plessy v. Ferguson/separate but equal. Since Texas did not have a law school for black students, the lower court continued the case for six months so that a state-funded law school for black … Plessy v. Ferguson: Separate but Equal sets the scene for this benchmark case with solid background information and lively biographies of those involved. Seven justices formed the Court's majority and joined an opinion written by Justice Henry Billings Brown. In 1892, they arranged for Homer Adolph Plessy (who was one-eighth black and could have readily “passed” for white) to be arrested on an East Louisiana Railway train for refusing to move to the car designated for “colored passengers.” The case eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court in 1896 as Plessy v. Ferguson (named for the New Orleans Criminal District Court Judge who first ruled against Plessy). The Browns took their case to the Supreme Court. The argument necessarily assumes that if, as has been more than once the case, and is not unlikely to be so again, the colored race should become the dominant power in the state legislature and should enact a law in precisely similar terms, it would thereby relegate the white race to an inferior position. But these are questions to be determined under the laws of each state and are not properly put in issue in this case. [12] In speaking for the court's decision that Ferguson's judgment did not violate the 14th Amendment, Louisiana Supreme Court Justice Charles Erasmus Fenner cited a number of precedents, including two key cases from Northern states. According to landmark cases.org “The Court decided that state laws requiring separate but equal schools violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.” The Majority Opinion was that “separate but equal” facilities are inherently unequal. The Court rejected the notion that the law marked black Americans with "a badge of inferiority", and stated that racial prejudice could not be overcome by legislation.[21]. In 1887, Florida passed the first law requiring railways to provide “equal but separate accommodations for the white, and colored, races,” and Mississippi, Texas, and other states soon followed suit. Indeed, we understand it to be conceded by the state’s attorney, that such part of the act as exempts from liability the railway company and its officers is unconstitutional. . [12][2] Justice David J. Tourgée built his case upon violation of Plessy's rights under the Thirteenth Amendment, prohibiting slavery, and the Fourteenth Amendment, which guarantees the same rights to all citizens of the United States, and the equal protection of those rights, against the deprivation of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.