Plessy V Ferguson
Storyboard Text
- Plessy vs. Ferguson
- Facts
- Issue
- No whites on this train.
- By Dalton Reynolds
- Majority Decision Reasoning
- Plessy v. Ferguson was a landmark 1896 U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation under the “separate but equal” doctrine. The case stemmed from an 1892 incident in which African American train passenger Homer Plessy refused to sit in a car for Black people.
- Dissenting Dissenting Opinion
- The case stemmed from an 1892 incident in which African American train passenger Homer Plessy refused to sit in a car for Black people.J. Advanced the controversial “separate but equal” doctrine for assessing the constitutionality of racial segregation laws.
- Impact of the case
- The majority upheld state-imposed racial segregation. Justice Brown conceded that the 14th Amendment intended to establish absolute equality for the races before the law, but held that separate treatment did not imply the inferiority of African Americans.
- John Marshall Harlan argued that the Constitution was color-blind and that the United States had no class system. Accordingly, all citizens should have equal access to civil rights.
- Ferguson decision upheld the principle of racial segregation over the next half-century. The ruling provided legal justification for segregation on trains and buses, and in public facilities such as hotels, theaters, and schools. The impact of Plessy was to relegate African Americans to second-class citizenship.
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