In Plessy vs. Ferguson (1896) Homer Plessy sat in the white segregated railroad car and was imprisoned on the bases that he was a black man, who was violating the law since he was called himself black but sitting in the white railroad car. He was light skinned and could pass for a white man since he considered himself …show more content…
Board of Education the Supreme Court ruled that segregation in public schools went against the fourteenth amendment which states that, “No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States... Nor to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” When the Supreme Court rules that segregation was unequal to all citizens of the U.S. they basically tore down the theory and the law of the Plessy vs. Ferguson case when they stated that segregation was okay so long as it was equal. Chief Justice Earl Warren states that, “…We conclude that, in the field of public education, the doctrine of “separate but equal” has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” Before this case came to the Supreme Court the school system had been segregated. The black schools were the rundown buildings that weren’t the greatest while the white schools were new and the best for their children. Right before Brown vs. Board of Education gave their final results Washington D.C. had already integrated 17 of their school districts. This became a domino effect for the surrounding states. The Southern states were giving more of a push back. They didn’t like the idea and fought against it as long as they …show more content…
Martin Luther King headed the March on Washington under the Kennedy administration. Kennedy wanted equality for all, but was getting some negative feedback from the southern states. They were being pressured to get the Civil Rights Acts underway and get the ball rolling. When M.L.K. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech the administration followed up with the legislation to get back on the right track with what the Eisenhower administration’s Civil Rights Act of 1957, was trying to accomplish. When Kennedy was assassinated Johnson took Kennedy’s Bill and turned it into the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The Jim Crow laws were the laws and practices that enforced segregation of races in the south. When it came to the Voting Right Act of 1965 African Americans were still not able to vote. There were old laws in place that kept blacks from voting. For example there were taxes, literacy tests and rules and practices that they had to jump through the hoops before they could even be considered to vote. This Act banned the laws in place that wouldn’t let all citizens vote. By 1984 there was an increase of 73 percent of black voters that were over the amount of whites