5th-Plessy+vs.+Ferguson

​ In //Plessy v. Ferguson//, a man by the name of Homer Plessy was asked by a citizen 's committee to help them challenge the newly enacted Seperate Car Act. It was a law that seperated the whites and blacks in the railroad cars. Plessy agreed and bought a ticket to first class on the train. He took a seat in the whites only section and was immediately confronted by the railroad conductor and asked to leave and move to the color car. When the conductor asked him to leave plessy informed him that he was 1/8 black and also that his entire family was white as well. The conductor called the police and reported plessy because he refused to move to the color car. Plessy was arrested and booked in jail but he was released the next morning on bond. The Plessy vs Ferguson Case established the //seperate but equal doctrine// that prevaded the life of Southern African Americans for over 50 years.

During The Case

Even though the supreme court had ruled in favor of these seperate areas as long as they were equal, it is evident that true equality was never an objective or a goal within the south. During the plessy argued that the law violated the Thirteenth and Fourteenth amendment. The Thirteenth Amendment made slavery illegal in the United States. The Fourteenth Amendment states that all persons born in the United States are citizens of the United States and of the state where they live. It also says that no state can deny citizens of the United States equal protection of the laws. Plessy argued that the Louisiana law violated these amendments because on the train Blacks and Whites could be separate, if it was equal, but it wasn't. The White cars were nicer and cleaner than the Black cars. Judge John Howard Ferguson had recently ruled the law "unconstitutional on trains that traveled through many states," but in this case, Judge Ferguson ruled that Plessy was guilty, because the state had the right to regulate railroad companies that run only in the state.

After the Case

It was sixty-four years before the "separate but equal" law, started by Plessy v. Ferguson, was finally ruled against by the United States Supreme Court. In the Brown vs Board of Education decision in 1954, it was ruled that separate was not equal in the public school system of Topeka, Kansas. After the Brown vs. Board of Education case, across the United States, it became illegal for Blacks and Whites to be required to go to separate schools.