Plessy+v.+Ferguson+(Jim+Crow+Laws)

by Laura English __Background__ On June 7, 1892, 30-year-old Homer Plessy was jailed for sitting in the "White" car of the East Louisiana Railroad. Could be considered white but was classified as an African American, and therefore required to sit on the "colored" car. In 1982 he deliberately sat in the white section and identified himself as black. Once he was arrested the case went to supreme court and his lawyer argued that the Separate Car Act violated the **Thirteenth and Fourteenth**. But he did not win the case, and had to pay a fine.
 * __JIM CROW LAWS: Plessy v. Ferguson __**

__Who__ The decisions of Plessy v. Ferguson had in reality defined separateness for white and colored, and in turn gave whites the upper hand in the quality: the Blacks were now oppressed by this decision of the supreme court and that of the Jim Crow Laws. and could not defend themselves, as court rulings ordered that the **Jim Crow Laws** did not pertain to individuals but to that of the government, so only the acts of governement that defied the 13th and 14th were unlawful.
 * "seperate but equal"** was not true after this.

Short term Importance: The Jim Crow Laws caused controversy between races because the laws were passed in southern states after reconstruction (post civil war) and thus, when federal troops left the south, those states enacted the "separate but equal" laws. It meant that everything from restaurants, to bathrooms, and movie theaters were separate: "colored wating room" etc.

Long Term Importance: The Plessy v. Ferguson case made definite leeway for segregation, and during President Wilson's term, this was more and more defined as part of the fabric of the south.

For the Civil Rights Movement: These laws were a huge part of the drive the civil rights movement focused on because blacks wanted the laws repealed, and some were "grandfather clauses" that meant that blacks could not vote for their own rights.

For the Civil Rights Movement: Its overall influence lead up to the supreme court case of Brown v. Board of Education, and hence, it is observed that by that build up of segregation created post-civil war, the mass movement of the civil rights movement was largely motivated by the segregational injustice blacks endured for a century.