12 décembre 2022

Which Supreme Court Case Ruled That Segregation Was Legal under the Separate but Equal Doctrine

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Much closer, and even almost directly to the point, is the case of Louisville, N.O. & T. Ry. Co. v. State, 133 U.S. 587, 10 Sup. Ct. 348, in which the railroad was accused of violating a Mississippi law that stipulated that all passenger railroads were to provide equal but separate accommodation for the white and colored races by providing two or more passenger cars for each passenger train or by dividing passenger cars by a bulkhead, to obtain separate accommodation. The case was presented from a different perspective than the present case, since it was an indictment against the railway company for failing to provide the separate accommodations, but the issue under consideration was the constitutionality of the legislation. In this case, the Mississippi Supreme Court (66 Miss.

662, 6 South. S. 203) had held that the Act applied only to intra-State trade and, since that was the interpretation of State law by its highest court, this had been accepted as exhaustive. « When it comes to respecting, » the court stated (page 591, 133 U.S. and page 348, 10 Sup. Ct.), « to fully respect intrastate commerce and not interfere with interstate commerce, then there is obviously no violation of the trade clause of the Federal Constitution. According to this article, there is no doubt about the power of the state to separate interstate passengers into different compartments or to interfere in any way with the privileges and rights of these passengers. All we can verify is whether the state has the power to require that railways within its borders have separate dwellings for the two races. The fact that only intrastate trade is affected is not an interference with the power conferred on Congress by the trade clause. In practice, the separate facilities provided to African Americans were rarely the same; Usually, they weren`t even close to the same thing, or they didn`t exist at all.

[2] For example, in the 1930 census, blacks made up 42% of Florida`s population. [3] However, according to the 1934-36 report of the Florida Superintendent of Public Instruction, the value of « white school properties » in the state was $70,543,000, while the value of African-American school properties was $4,900,000. The report states: « In some South Florida counties and most of the northern Florida counties, many black schools are housed in churches, barracks, and pavilions, and have no washrooms, water supply, desks, blackboards, etc. [See Station One School.] The counties use these schools as a way to secure government funding, and yet these counties invest little or nothing in them. At the time, secondary education for African Americans was offered in only 28 of Florida`s 67 counties. [4] In 1939-40, the average salary for a white teacher in Florida was $1,148, while for a black teacher it was $585. [5] Separate but equal was a legal doctrine in U.S. constitutional law, according to which racial segregation does not necessarily violate the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which nominally guaranteed « equal protection » of the law for all. Under the doctrine, as long as the facilities provided to each « race » were equal, state and local governments could require that services, facilities, public housing, housing, medical care, education, employment, and transportation be separated by « race, » which was already the case in the former Confederacy states. The term is derived from an 1890 Louisiana law, although the law actually uses the phrase « equal but separate. » [1] The white race considers itself the dominant race in this country. And so it is in prestige, in achievement, in education, in wealth and in power.

But given the constitution, in the eyes of the law, there is no upper, dominant and ruling class of citizens in this country. There is no caste here. Our constitution is colorblind and does not know or tolerate classes among citizens. In terms of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law. The humblest is the peer of the mightiest. The law considers man as a human being and has no regard for his environment or the color of his skin when it comes to his civil rights, as guaranteed by the supreme law of the land. On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court rendered a decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, stating that « separate educational institutions are inherently unequal. » The section A Century of Racial Segregation contains several references to Plessy v. Ferguson. The constitutionality of this law is challenged on the grounds that it is contrary to both the Thirteenth Amendment of the Constitution, which abolishes slavery, and the Fourteenth Amendment, which prohibits certain restrictive laws by states. 2.

The Fourteenth Amendment makes all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to its jurisdiction citizens of the United States and of the state in which they reside; and States are prohibited from enacting or enforcing laws that limit the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States, or deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process, or deny to any person within their jurisdiction the same protection of the laws. Plessy is widely regarded as one of the worst decisions in the history of the U.S. Supreme Court. [4] Despite his shame, the decision was never explicitly overturned. [5] But a number of subsequent decisions of the Court, beginning with the 1954 decision of Brown v. The Board of Education – which concluded that the doctrine of « separate but equal » is unconstitutional in the context of public schools and educational institutions – has weakened Plessy to such an extent that he is considered a de facto minority. [6] The United States Congress considers that Plessy was outvoted by Bob Jones University against the United States. [7] Thus, also in Civil Rights, 109 U.S. 3, 3 Sup. Ct. 18, it was held that the refusal of a person to admit persons of colour by a mere person who owns an inn, public transportation or place of entertainment cannot legitimately be considered to impose a badge of slavery or servitude on the applicant.

but only as an ordinary civil violation, duly recognizable by the laws of the State. and is likely to be subject to remedy by those laws until the contrary occurs. « It would mean driving the issue of slavery into the ground, » Justice Bradley said, « to apply it to any act of discrimination that a person deems appropriate with respect to the guests he will receive or the people he will take in his car, taxi or car or admit to his concert or theater. or dealing with other transportation or business matters. Next, the court considered whether the law violated the Fourteenth Amendment`s equality clause, which states, « And no state can. to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the same protection of the law. The court stated that while the Fourteenth Amendment is intended to ensure the legal equality of all races in America, it is not intended to prevent social or other discrimination. [26] This set of primary sources contains images, documents, maps, films, newspapers, and analytical tools that teach Jim Crow and segregation. The motion for a prohibition order revealed that the complainant had seven-eighths of Caucasian blood and one-eighth of African blood; that the mixture of colored blood was not discernible in him; and that he enjoyed all the rights, privileges and immunities guaranteed to citizens of the Caucasian United States; and that, according to such a theory, he took possession of a free seat in a carriage in which passengers of the white race were accommodated, and was instructed by the driver to leave that carriage and take a seat in another carriage assigned to persons of the coloured race, and having refused to comply with that request, He was forcibly evicted, with the help of a police officer, and imprisoned in the parish prison to face charges of violating the above-mentioned law. 7. In June 1892, Plessy purchased a first-class ticket from the Press Street Depot and boarded a « Whites Only » car of the East Louisiana Railroad in New Orleans, Louisiana, bound for Covington, Louisiana.

[11] The railway company, which had opposed the legislation on the grounds that it would require the purchase of additional cars, had already been informed of Plessy`s racial origin and its intention to challenge the law. [12] In addition, the Citizens` Committee hired a private investigator with the power of arrest to arrest Plessy to ensure that he would be charged with an offence under the Cars Divided Cars Act, as opposed to vagrancy or another offence. After Plessy took his seat on the whites-only railway, he was asked to leave it and sit in the black-only car instead.[12] Plessy refused and was immediately arrested by the detective. [13] As planned, the train was stopped and Plessy was removed from the train at Press Street and Royal Street. [12] Plessy was remanded in custody for trial in the parish of Orleans. After his arrest, Homer Plessy challenged the Separate Car Act, arguing that state law requiring the Louisiana Railroad to separate trains denied him his rights under the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.[14] .

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