In its ruling, the Court denied that segregated railroad cars for Black people were necessarily inferior. In declaring separate-but-equal facilities constitutional on intrastate railroads, the Court ruled that the protections of 14th Amendment applied only to political and civil rights (like voting and jury service), not “social rights” (sitting in the railroad car of your choice). Then, on May 18, 1896, the Supreme Court delivered its verdict in Plessy v. Congress defeated a bill that would have given federal protection to elections in 1892, and nullified a number of Reconstruction laws on the books. Over the next few years, segregation and Black disenfranchisement picked up pace in the South, and was more than tolerated by the North. Ferguson, claiming that the law violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. After refusing to leave the car at the conductor’s insistence, he was arrested and jailed.Ĭonvicted by a New Orleans court of violating the 1890 law, Plessy filed a petition against the presiding judge, Hon. On June 7, 1892, Plessy bought a ticket on a train from New Orleans bound for Covington, Louisiana, and took a vacant seat in a whites-only car. Homer Adolph Plessy, who agreed to be the plaintiff in the case aimed at testing the law’s constitutionality, was of mixed race he described himself as “seven-eighths Caucasian and one-eighth African blood.” Ferguson was a law passed in Louisiana in 1890 “providing for separate railway carriages for the white and colored races.” It stipulated that all passenger railways had to provide these separate cars, which should be equal in facilities. Black Resistance to SegregationĪs Southern Black people witnessed with horror the dawn of the Jim Crow era, members of the Black community in New Orleans decided to mount a resistance.Īt the heart of the case that became Plessy v. Ferguson, white and Black Southerners mixed relatively freely until the 1880s, when state legislatures passed the first laws requiring railroads to provide separate cars for “Negro” or “colored” passengers.įlorida became the first state to mandate segregated railroad cars in 1887, followed in quick succession by Mississippi, Texas, Louisiana and other states by the end of the century. Vann Woodward pointed out in a 1964 article about Plessy v. Southern Black people saw the promise of equality under the law embodied by the 13th Amendment, 14th Amendment and 15th Amendment to the Constitution receding quickly, and a return to disenfranchisement and other disadvantages as white supremacy reasserted itself across the South.Īs historian C. Ferguson: Background and ContextĪfter the Compromise of 1877 led to the withdrawal of federal troops from the South, Democrats consolidated control of state legislatures throughout the region, effectively marking the end of Reconstruction. It is the hypothetical source of/evidence for its existence is provided by: Sanskrit abhitah "on both sides," abhi "toward, to " Avestan aibi Greek amphi "round about " Latin ambi- "around, round about " Gaulish ambi-, Old Irish imb- "round about, about " Old Church Slavonic oba Lithuanian abu "both " Old English ymbe, German um "around.Plessy v. It forms all or part of: abaft about alley (n.1) "open passage between buildings " ambagious ambassador ambi- ambidexterity ambidextrous ambience ambient ambiguous ambit ambition ambitious amble ambulance ambulant ambulate ambulation ambulatory amphi- amphibian Amphictyonic amphisbaena Amphiscians amphitheater amphora amputate amputation ancillary andante anfractuous be- begin beleaguer between bivouac but by circumambulate embassy ember-days funambulist ombudsman perambulate perambulation preamble somnambulate somnambulism umlaut. Also *mbhi-, Proto-Indo-European root meaning "around " probably derived from *ant-bhi "from both sides," from root *ant- "front, forehead."
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