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Plessy
''Plessy v. Ferguson'', 163 U.S. 537 (1896), was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in which the Court ruled that racial segregation laws did not violate the U.S. Constitution as long as the facilities for each race were equal in quality, a doctrine that came to be known as " separate but equal". The decision legitimized the many state laws re-establishing racial segregation that had been passed in the American South after the end of the Reconstruction era (1865–1877). The underlying case began in 1892 when Homer Plessy, a mixed-race man, deliberately boarded a "whites-only" train car in New Orleans. By boarding the whites-only car, Plessy violated Louisiana's Separate Car Act of 1890, which required "equal, but separate" railroad accommodations for white and non-white passengers. Plessy was charged under the Act, and at his trial his lawyers argued that judge John Howard Ferguson should dismiss the charges on the grounds that the Act was unconstitutional. Ferguson deni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Homer Plessy
Homer Adolph Plessy (born Homère Patris Plessy; 1862 or March 17, 1863 – March 1, 1925) was an American shoemaker and activist, best known as the plaintiff in the United States Supreme Court decision ''Plessy v. Ferguson''. He staged an act of civil disobedience to challenge one of Louisiana's racial segregation laws and bring a test case to force the U.S. Supreme Court to rule on the constitutionality of segregation laws. The Court decided against Plessy. The resulting "separate but equal" legal doctrine determined that state-mandated segregation did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution as long as the facilities provided for both black and white people were putatively "equal". The legal precedent set by ''Plessy v. Ferguson'' lasted into the mid-20th century, until a series of landmark Supreme Court decisions concerning segregation, beginning with ''Brown v. Board of Education'' in 1954. Plessy was born a free person of color in a family of Fre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Howard Ferguson
John Howard Ferguson (June 10, 1838 – November 12, 1915) was an American lawyer and judge from Louisiana, most famous as the defendant in the ''Plessy v. Ferguson'' case. Biography Ferguson was born the third and last child to Baptist parents (John H. Ferguson & Sarah Davis Luce) on June 10, 1838 in Chilmark, Massachusetts. The son, grandson, great-grandson, and great-great-grandson of Martha's Vineyard (Chimark & Tisbury) Master Mariners, John Howard Ferguson chose a different vocational path and taught school in his early years, finally setting about to study law. Young Ferguson's family was all but wiped out between 1849 and 1861, and after the Civil War ended, and he had completed his legal studies in Boston under the tutelage of Benjamin F. Hallett, Ferguson moved to New Orleans in 1865. There he met and married in July 1866, Virginia Butler Earhart, daughter of Thomas Jefferson Earhart, a staunch and outspoken abolitionist from Pennsylvania. The Fergusons raised t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Comité Des Citoyens
The ('Citizens' Committee' in French language, French) was a civil rights group made up of African Americans, whites, and Louisiana Creole people, Creoles. It is most well known for its involvement in ''Plessy v. Ferguson''. The Citizens' Committee was opposed to racial segregation and was responsible for multiple demonstrations in which African Americans rode on the "white" cars of trains. A prominent member of the group was Louis A. Martinet, a politician, journalist, and lawyer who is credited with much of the thinking behind their legal strategy. History In 1890, the State of Louisiana passed the Separate Car Act, which required separate accommodations for Black and white people on railroads, including separate railway car, railroad cars. At the suggestion of Aristide Mary, a wealthy Creole landowner who was active in Louisiana's Reconstruction era politics, including running for governor in 1872, a group of 18 prominent black, creole of color, and white creole New Orleans ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Separate But Equal
Separate but equal was a legal doctrine in United States constitutional law, according to which racial segregation did not necessarily violate the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which nominally guaranteed "equal protection" under the law to all people. Under the doctrine, as long as the facilities provided to each "race" were equal, state and local governments could require that services, facilities, public accommodations, housing, medical care, education, employment, and transportation be segregated by "race", which was already the case throughout the states of the former Confederacy. The phrase was derived from a Louisiana law of 1890, although the law actually used the phrase "equal but separate". The doctrine was confirmed in the ''Plessy v. Ferguson'' Supreme Court decision of 1896, which allowed state-sponsored segregation. Though segregation laws existed before that case, the decision emboldened segregation states during the Jim Crow era, which ha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
East Louisiana Railroad
The East Louisiana Railroad (officially the East Louisiana Railroad Company), chartered in 1887, was a railroad in Louisiana and Mississippi, United States. It was formed to connect Pearl River, Louisiana, to Covington, Louisiana, and Lake Pontchartrain. The company played a key role in the 1896 case of ''Plessy v. Ferguson'' by arranging for Homer Plessy, a black man, to board a whites-only passenger car. In 1889, the company chartered trains to a boxing match between John L. Sullivan and Jake Kilrain. In 1905, it was merged into the New Orleans Great Northern Railway. History The East Louisiana Railroad was chartered on July 8, 1887, with authorization to connect Pearl River and Covington, along with "such points or places in the states of Louisiana and Mississippi, as also to such points or places on Lake Pontchartrain as the board of directors ... may determine". In 1896, the East Louisiana Railroad worked with Homer Plessy, a Louisiana resident, to challenge Louisiana' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Separate Car Act
The Separate Car Act (Act 111) was a law passed by the Louisiana State Legislature in 1890 which required " equal, but separate" train car accommodations for Blacks and Whites.Margo, p. 68 An unsuccessful challenge to this law culminated in the United States Supreme Court decision of ''Plessy v. Ferguson'' in 1896, which upheld the constitutionality of state laws requiring racial segregation. History The Reconstruction period and its subsequent end led to a discussion among both Blacks and Whites in the South how to interpret "equal rights" and the new Reconstruction Amendments. J. P. Weaver, a Black preacher, had advised Blacks to accept separate accommodations if they were "first-class". "But if there is no such accommodation set apart for you, and you are crowded upon by base and reckless beings, depriving you of all that tends to your happiness ... excuse yourself for being colored, and walk in another car and cabin".Hasian Jr., p. 5 Following Reconstruction and the withdr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Marshall Harlan
John Marshall Harlan (June 1, 1833 – October 14, 1911) was an American lawyer and politician who served as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1877 until his death in 1911. He is often called "The Great Dissenter" due to his many dissents in cases that restricted civil liberties, including the ''Civil Rights Cases'', ''Plessy v. Ferguson'', and '' Giles v. Harris''. Many of Harlan's views expressed in his notable dissents would become the official view of the Supreme Court starting from the 1950s Warren Court and onward. His grandson John Marshall Harlan II was also a Supreme Court justice. Born into a prominent, slave-holding family near Danville, Kentucky, Harlan experienced a quick rise to political prominence. When the American Civil War broke out, Harlan strongly supported the Union and recruited the 10th Kentucky Infantry. Despite his opposition to the Emancipation Proclamation, he served in the war until 1863, when he won election as Attorney Genera ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Racial Segregation
Racial segregation is the systematic separation of people into race (human classification), racial or other Ethnicity, ethnic groups in daily life. Racial segregation can amount to the international crime of apartheid and a crimes against humanity, crime against humanity under the Statute of the International Criminal Court. Segregation can involve the wikt:spatial, spatial separation of the races, and mandatory use of different institutions, such as schools and hospitals by people of different races. Specifically, it may be applied to activities such as eating in restaurants, drinking from water fountains, using public toilets, attending schools, going to films, riding buses, renting or purchasing homes or renting hotel rooms. In addition, segregation often allows close contact between members of different racial or ethnic groups in social hierarchy, hierarchical situations, such as allowing a person of one race to work as a servant for a member of another race. Segregation i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Equal Protection Clause
The Equal Protection Clause is part of the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The clause, which took effect in 1868, provides "''nor shall any State ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.''" It mandates that individuals in similar situations be treated equally by the law. A primary motivation for this clause was to validate the equality provisions contained in the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which guaranteed that all citizens would have the guaranteed right to equal protection by law. As a whole, the Fourteenth Amendment marked a large shift in American constitutionalism, by applying substantially more constitutional restrictions against the states than had applied before the American Civil War, Civil War. The meaning of the Equal Protection Clause has been the subject of much debate, and inspired the well-known phrase "Equal justice under law, Equal Justice Under Law". This clause was the basis for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fourteenth Amendment To The United States Constitution
The Fourteenth Amendment (Amendment XIV) to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments. Often considered as one of the most consequential amendments, it addresses citizenship rights and equal protection under the law and was proposed in response to issues related to former slaves following the American Civil War. The amendment was bitterly contested, particularly by the states of the defeated Confederacy, which were forced to ratify it in order to regain representation in Congress. The amendment, particularly its first section, is one of the most litigated parts of the Constitution, forming the basis for landmark Supreme Court decisions such as ''Brown v. Board of Education'' (1954) regarding racial segregation, ''Roe v. Wade'' (1973) regarding abortion ( overturned in 2022), ''Bush v. Gore'' (2000) regarding the 2000 presidential election, and ''Obergefell v. Hodges'' (2015) regarding same-sex marriage. The amendment ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Orleans
New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans Merriam-Webster. ; french: La Nouvelle-Orléans , es, Nueva Orleans) is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 according to the 2020 U.S. census, it is the List of municipalities in Louisiana, most populous city in Louisiana and the twelfth-most populous city in the southeastern United States. Serving as a List of ports in the United States, major port, New Orleans is considered an economic and commercial hub for the broader Gulf Coast of the United States, Gulf Coast region of the United States. New Orleans is world-renowned for its Music of New Orleans, distinctive music, Louisiana Creole cuisine, Creole cuisine, New Orleans English, uniq ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of Landmark Court Decisions In The United States
Landmark court decisions in the United States change the interpretation of existing law. Such a decision may settle the law in more than one way: * establishing a significant new legal principle or concept; * overturning prior precedent based on its negative effects or flaws in its reasoning; * distinguishing a new principle that refines a prior principle, thus departing from prior practice without violating the rule of '' stare decisis''; * establishing a test or a measurable standard that can be applied by courts in future decisions. In the United States, landmark court decisions come most frequently from the Supreme Court. United States courts of appeals may also make such decisions, particularly if the Supreme Court chooses not to review the case or if it adopts the holding of the lower court, such as in '' Smith v. Collin''. Although many cases from state supreme courts are significant in developing the law of that state, only a few are so revolutionary that they announce s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
