The Fifteenth Amendment

“What can more certainly arouse race hate, what more certainly create and perpetuate a feeling of distrust between these races, than state enactments which, in fact, proceed on the ground that colored citizens are so inferior and degraded that they cannot be allowed to sit in public coaches occupied by white citizens?”- John Marshall Harlan. On May 18, 1896, the Supreme court passed the separate but equal act on a vote of 7-1. This allowed separate facilities to be made for whites and blacks. This was the result of the Plessy vs Ferguson case, where a man was forced out of a whites-only car because he had African descent. The Supreme court couldn’t find any differences in the train cars, yet separate facilities for blacks had a decrease in quality.

Today nine negro students tried to enter Little Rock Central High and were denied access. My sources tell me that Governor Faubus had called in the National Guard and ordered them not to let the students in the school. This decision he has made brakes not only the law but also upsets the president, Dwight D. Eisenhower. Many Arkansans agree with Faubus. Is Faubus

The petitioner of the case was Homer Plessy, and the respondent of the case was John H. Ferguson. The hearing began on April 13th, 1896, and came to a conclusion on May 18th, 1896. This case was one of the beginning cases for Separate but Equal, and is still remembered to this day. This case all started when Plessy, who was seven eighths white, sat down in the “white” train car and was asked to leave and sit in the “colored” train car.

Plessy v. Ferguson was a very important topic in 1892. When an African-American man named Homer Plessy, who looked white decided to ride in a “whites-only” railroad car. Plessy told a white man who worked on the train that he was 1/8 African-American and was arrested for not moving to the “blacks-only” car. The reason he went on the “whites-only” car was to protest against Louisiana’s “Separate Car Act,” which meant blacks and whites had to be in different cars on a train so they could be seperate. This debate soon went to court and was argued if what happened on the train was constitutional or unconstitutional.

Board of Education signified the first time that the Supreme Court was on the African American side. This court case was a direct challenge to Plessy v. Ferguson, which stated that separate but equal facilities were equal. The book Warriors Don’t Cry is set directly during this period. In 1957, Governor Orval Faubus blocked the integration of nine students from Little Rocks Central High. President Eisenhower eventually became involved for a few reasons; one was because Governor Faubus was making an obvious resistance to federal authority.

To understand the question, focusing on the court cases of Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Board of Education, we must first understand each court case on its own. Plessy v. Ferguson resulted in the year 1896. The case involved the 1890s Louisiana law that basically stated that there were separate railway carriages that were specifically labeled for blacks only and whites only. Plessy v. Ferguson involved Homer Plessy, who was seven-eighths white and one-eighth black and appeared to look like a white man. Plessy took an open seat in a white only railway car.

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. Mr. Plessy then appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court of Louisiana which also went against him, saying the separate but equal law was constitutional. Plessy finally appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States, because he still believed that the “separate but equal” law violated the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments, because it did not treat Blacks and Whites equally. However, in 1896, the Supreme Court of the United States decided that Homer Plessy was guilty.

After the revolutionary Brown v. Board of Education decision, the Warren Supreme Court fought for the integration of schools. After the Little Rock Nine plight, then-Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus closed all of the black-area schools “until a Supreme Court ruling forced them to reopen in 1959” (Brooks, King, and Osborne 40). During the plight for integrated school systems, the states of the Union were acting as the Divided States and autonomously passing laws. The Warren Court utilized their constitutional power to resurrect the true purpose of the United States and redefined the role of a state. Before the Little Rock Nine, Earl Warren and his Supreme Court did started their activism, backing the Montgomery Bus Boycotts in 1956 and affirming a lower court ruling that “any law requiring racially segregated seating on buses violated the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution” (“Montgomery Bus Boycott”).

Plessy was arrested and then tried before Judge Ferguson in a New Orleans court. Ferguson upheld the state law that legalized “equal but separate accommodations for the white and colored races” on trains (Plessy v. Ferguson- History). Plessy argued that this violated his 13th and 14th amendment rights and the case was taken to the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1896, the Supreme Court decided in a 7-1 vote that the state-imposed segregation law was in fact constitutional and that it didn’t violate the equal protection laws of the 14th Amendment (Plessy v. Ferguson- Oyez).

This case, which concerned racial segregation laws for public facilities such as restrooms, restaurants, and water fountains, made its way all the way to the Supreme Court. As way of background, in 1890 Louisiana passed a law which required blacks and whites to ride in separate train cars. However, in 1892, Homer A. Plessy, who was a black man, boarded a car designated for whites only. He was asked to leave, but refused and was arrested immediately. In the case, Plessy vs Ferguson, Plessy’s position was that his rights were violated under the 13th and 14th amendments of the Constitution, which dictated equal treatment under the law.

This forbade the states from segregating students in public schools. The court mandated that all public schools in the country be integrated. But, Orval E. Faubus (governor of Arkansas) refused the nine African Americans to attend the Central High School, because his thoughts on integration were to have none. Orval Faubus went to all costs to stop the African American students by calling the state 's national guard to protect the premises

For nearly a century, the United States was occupied by the racial segregation of black and white people. The constitutionality of this “separation of humans into racial or other ethnic groups in daily life” had not been decided until a deliberate provocation to the law was made. The goal of this test was to have a mulatto, someone of mixed blood, defy the segregated train car law and raise a dispute on the fairness of being categorized as colored or not. This test went down in history as Plessy v. Ferguson, a planned challenge to the law during a period ruled by Jim Crow laws and the idea of “separate but equal” without equality for African Americans. This challenge forced the Supreme Court to rule on the constitutionality of segregation, and in result of the case, caused the nation to have split opinions of support and

Hostility between whites and African Americans in Arkansas was persistent even with the efforts to ensure equal rights for every citizen throughout the state in early 20th century. One source of this hostility was segregation. This existed especially in the school system. However, state laws stated that separate public schools were unconstitutional as a result of Brown v. Board of Education. Little Rock Central High was the first Arkansas school to integrate.

The film, Eyes on the Prize: Fighting Back, Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas is put to the test. During the Supreme Court case of Brown Vs The Board of Education, many people fought for schools to end segregation of the students. This means that black and white students would attend the same schools together. The Supreme Court case made its final decision and made it illegal to segregate students. Central High School was the school that let black students in first.

Plessy vs. Ferguson was a case that attempted to prove that the Jim Crow lawintervened with the fourteenth amendment in May 18, 1896. To give you a brief description about the Fourteenth Amendment, The Fourteenth Amendment was ratified on July 9, 1868 in the US Constitution. The Fourteenth Amendment broad goal was to ensure that the Civil Rights Act passed in 1866 would remain valid ensuring that "all persons born in the United States..." people that are born in the United States of America are given citizenship. Also, born citizenship provides "full and equal benefit of all laws."