Supreme Court Cases
Plessy v. Ferguson
"Homer Plessy, a black man who tried to board a white-only train in Louisiana (the car designated for blacks was full), claimed the Louisiana segregation laws violated both his 13th and 14th Amendment rights. Once Plessy boarded the white-only train, he was forcibly removed and jailed. The Supreme Court, by a vote of 8-1, ruled that equal rights did not mean co-mingling of the races, effectively legalizing and facilitating 'separate but equal' access for blacks."
- Tsahai Tafari, PBS Series, "The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow" |
"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."
- Richard Wormser, PBS Series, "The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow" |
"Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) marked the beginning of a 58-year period where Jim Crow was largely unchallenged and condoned by the federal government." - Tsahai Tafari, PBS Series, The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow |
Brown v. Board of Education
"Linda (Brown) was African-American who could not go to the white school just seven blocks from her home. In 1951, her father, Oliver L. Brown, ... agreed to participate as one of 13 plaintiffs who tried unsuccessfully to enroll their children in white schools. ... The appeal to the Supreme Court was combined with other similar cases, but the Topeka case was the only one where the separate schools were considered to be basically equal in quality. The Supreme Court... (reached) a unanimous decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. Segregated schools violated the 'equal protection' guarantee of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution." - The Road to Civil Rights, U.S. Department of Transportation |
"We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." - Chief Justice Earl Warren, Brown v. Board of Education (1954) |