Download link: 
➡ Click here: Plessy v ferguson
Further readings Anderson, Wayne. That argument, if it can be properly regarded as one, is scarcely worthy of consideration, for social equality no more exists between two races when traveling in a passenger coach or a public highway than when members of the same races sit by each other in a street car or in the jury box, or stand or sit with each other in a political assembly, or when they use in common the street of a city or town, or when they are in the same room for the purpose of having their names placed on the registry of voters, or when they approach the ballot box in order to exercise the high privilege of voting. New York Times 1923—Current File.
In his case, Homer Adolph Plessy v. Indeed, the right of a colored man that, in the selection of jurors to pass upon his life, liberty and property, there shall be no exclusion of his race and no discrimination against them because of color has been asserted in a number of cases. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. No exception is made of colored attendants traveling with adults. Oral arguments were held before the Supreme Court on April 13, 1896. So, where the laws of a particular locality or the charter of a particular railway corporation has provided that no person shall be excluded from the cars on account of color, we have held that this meant that persons of color plessy v ferguson travel in the same car as white ones, and that the glad was not satisfied by the company providing cars assigned exclusively to people of color, though they were as good as those which they assigned exclusively to white persons.
But this argument does not meet the difficulty. The proper construction of this amendment was first called to the attention of this court in the Slaughter-House Cases, 16 Wall. After Plessy took a seat in the whites-only railway car, he was asked to vacate it, and sit instead in the blacks-only car. Justice BREWER did not hear the argument or participate in the decision of this case.
Plessy v. Ferguson - 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. New Orleans historian Keith Weldon Medley, author of We As Freemen: Plessy v.
For similar names, see. This legitimized the many state laws re-establishing racial segregation that had been passed in the after the end of the 1865—1877. The decision was handed down by a vote of 7 to 1, with the majority opinion written by Justice and the lone dissent written by Justice. Court membership Chief Justice Associate Justices · · · · Case opinions Majority Brown, joined by Fuller, Field, Gray, Shiras, White, Peckham Dissent Harlan Brewer took no part in the consideration or decision of the case. Laws applied ; 1890 La. Acts 152 Overruled by de facto , 347 U. Despite its infamy, the decision itself has never been explicitly overruled. In 1890, the state of passed the , which required separate accommodations for blacks and whites on railroads, including separate. Concerned, a group of prominent black, , and white residents formed the Comité des Citoyens Committee of Citizens dedicated to repeal the law or fight its effect. They persuaded , a man of , to participate in an orchestrated. 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 lineage, and the intent to challenge the law. Additionally, the committee hired a private detective with arrest powers to detain Plessy, to ensure that he would be charged for violating the Separate Car Act, as opposed to a vagrancy or some other offense. After Plessy took a seat in the whites-only railway car, he was asked to vacate it, and sit instead in the blacks-only car. Plessy refused and was arrested immediately by the detective. As planned, the train was stopped, and Plessy was taken off the train at Press and Royal streets. Plessy was remanded for trial in Orleans Parish. Marker placed at Press and Royal Streets in New Orleans on February 12, 2009, commemorating the arrest of Homer Plessy on June 7, 1892, for violating the Louisiana 1890 Separate Car Act In his case, Homer Adolph Plessy v. The State of Louisiana, Plessy's lawyers argued that the state law which required East Louisiana Railroad to segregate trains had denied him his rights under the and amendments of the United States Constitution, which provided for equal treatment under the law. However, the judge presiding over his case, , ruled that Louisiana had the right to regulate railroad companies while they operated within state boundaries. Plessy immediately sought a. The Committee of Citizens took Plessy's appeal to the , where he again found an unreceptive ear, as the state Supreme Court upheld Judge Ferguson's ruling. In speaking for the court's decision that Ferguson's judgment did not violate the 14th Amendment, Louisiana Supreme Court Justice Charles Fenner cited a number of precedents, including two key cases from Northern states. The Massachusetts Supreme Court had ruled in 1849 — before the 14th amendment — that segregated schools were constitutional. It is simply to say that following the order of Divine Providence, human authority ought not to compel these widely separated races to intermix. Two legal briefs were submitted on Plessy's behalf. One was signed by and James C. Walker and the other by and his legal partner F. Oral arguments were held before the Supreme Court on April 13, 1896. Tourgée and Phillips appeared in the courtroom to speak on behalf of Plessy. 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. The state legal brief was prepared by of and New Orleans. In addition, the decision rejected the view that the Louisiana law implied any inferiority of blacks, in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Instead, it contended that the law separated the two races as a matter of public policy. If this be so, it is not by reason of anything found in the act, but solely because the colored race chooses to put that construction upon it. While the Court did not find a difference in quality between the whites-only and blacks-only railway cars, this was manifestly untrue in the case of most other separate facilities, such as public toilets, cafés, and public schools, where the facilities designated for blacks were consistently of lesser quality than those for whites. Dissent Justice dissented, and predicted the court's decision would become as infamous as 1857. Justice Harlan was from Kentucky, which was a border state during the Civil War. Harlan said, in part: The white race deems itself to be the dominant race in this country. And so it is in prestige, in achievements, in education, in wealth and in power. So, I doubt not, it will continue to be for all time if it remains true to its great heritage and holds fast to the principles of constitutional liberty. But in view of the constitution, in the eye of the law, there is in this country no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens. There is no here. Our constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law. The humblest is the peer of the most powerful. The law regards man as man, and takes no account of his surroundings or of his color when his civil rights as guaranteed by the supreme law of the land are involved. It is therefore to be regretted that this high tribunal, the final expositor of the fundamental law of the land, has reached the conclusion that it is competent for a state to regulate the enjoyment by citizens of their civil rights solely upon the basis of race. In my opinion, the judgment this day rendered will, in time, prove to be quite as pernicious as the decision made by this tribunal in the. Plessy legitimized the state laws establishing racial segregation in the and provided an impetus for further segregation laws. It also legitimized laws in the North requiring racial segregation as in the Boston school segregation case noted by Justice Brown in his majority opinion. In addition, from 1890 to 1908, Southern states passed new or amended constitutions including provisions that effectively blacks and thousands of poor whites. Some commentators, such as and , have viewed Harlan's Plessy dissent in a more critical light, and suggested it be viewed in context with his other decisions. Persons belonging to it are, with few exceptions, absolutely excluded from our country. I allude to the Chinese race. But, by the statute in question, a Chinaman can 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... New Orleans historian Keith Weldon Medley, author of We As Freemen: Plessy v. The effect of the Plessy ruling was immediate; there were already significant differences in funding for the segregated school system, which continued into the 20th century; states consistently underfunded black schools, providing them with substandard buildings, textbooks, and supplies. States which had successfully integrated elements of their society abruptly adopted oppressive legislation that erased reconstruction era efforts. The principles of Plessy v. Ferguson were affirmed in 1927 , which upheld the right of a public school for white children to exclude a girl. Despite the laws enforcing , and the lack of public schools for Chinese children in Lum's area, the Supreme Court ruled that she had the choice to attend a. Jim Crow laws and practices spread northward in response to a second wave of African-American migration from the South to northern and midwestern cities. Some established segregated educational facilities, separate public institutions such as hotels and restaurants, separate beaches among other public facilities, and restrictions on interracial marriage, but in other cases segregation in the North was related to unstated practices and operated on a basis, although not by law, among numerous other facets of daily life. The separate facilities and institutions accorded to the African-American community were consistently inferior to those provided to the White community. From 1890 to 1908, state legislatures in the South disfranchised most blacks and many poor whites through rejecting them for voter registration and voting: making voter registration more difficult by providing more detailed records, such as proof of land ownership or administered by white staff at poll stations. African-American community leaders, who had achieved brief political success during the Reconstruction era and even into the 1880s, lost gains made when their voters were excluded from the political system. In the case of Brown v. Board of Education 1954 , the US Supreme Court ruled that segregation in public education was unconstitutional. Ferguson was never overturned by the Supreme Court. But, the prohibited legal segregation and the of 1965 provided for federal oversight and enforcement of voter registration voting. Plessy and Ferguson Foundation In 2009 Keith Plessy and Phoebe Ferguson, descendants of participants on both sides of the 1896 Supreme Court case, announced establishing the Plessy and Ferguson Foundation for Education and Reconciliation. The foundation will work to create new ways to teach the history of civil rights through film, art, and public programs designed to create understanding of this historic case and its effect on the American conscience. Plaque at railyard site Historians gathered with the Plessy and Ferguson families and a member of the in New Orleans on February 12, 2009, to unveil a historical marker to memorialize the case. The marker was placed on the corner of Press and Royal Streets, near the location of the former railway station where Plessy had boarded his train. Encyclopedia of American Studies. Retrieved December 22, 2012. Archived from on July 15, 2011. Retrieved May 1, 2010. Johns Hopkins University Press. Retrieved October 4, 2011. Retrieved October 4, 2011. Retrieved October 5, 2011. A Concise Chronicle History of the African-American people Experience in America: From Slavery to the White House. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. Journal of American Studies. Brands, American Colossus: The Triumph of Capitalism 1865-1900 New York: Random House, 2010 , pp. Archived from on October 6, 2014. Retrieved October 2, 2014. The Journal of Negro History. Retrieved December 22, 2012. Separate and Unequal: Homer Plessy and the Supreme Court Decision That Legalized Racism. The Atlantic Monthly, July 1954. American Nineteenth Century History 5, no. The Mysterious Stranger and Other Cartoons by John T. New York Times 1923—Current File. Archived from Flash on February 21, 2009. USA: Oxford University Press. Retrieved February 1, 2010. Encyclopedia of African American Education. Southern Quarterly 46, no. Studies in American Political Development 13, no. Retrieved July 22, 2015. New Orleans Center for Creative Arts. Archived from on February 21, 2009. University of Illinois Law Review 4 : 961—78. The Case Against the Supreme Court. New York: Penguin Books. Color-Blind Justice: Albion Tourgée and the Quest for Racial Equality from the Civil War to Plessy v. New York: Oxford University Press. Forbidden Grounds: The Case Against Employment Discrimination Laws. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. Separate and Unequal: Homer Plessy and the Supreme Court Decision That Legalized Racism. The Plessy Case: A Legal-Historical Interpretation. New York: Oxford University Press. We As Freemen: Plessy v. Ferguson: A Brief History with Documents. I Dissent: Great Opposing Opinions in Landmark Supreme Court Cases.