After the last few days of the pandemic, who remembers what Punxsutawney Phil predicted
about Spring. The calendar says Spring started March 19 which is the earliest vernal
equinox since 1896
, and what a year that was for Black Americans.
“Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor
tolerates classes among citizens,” Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan
stated.
Harlan was the only Justice who espoused that philosophy in
May 1896 when the highest court in the land reached a decision with
far-reaching and devastating implications for Black Americans. With Plessy v.
Ferguson, the Supreme Court gave its approval to ‘separate but equal’ public
facilities for different racial groups. The historical narrative mobilized by
Reconstruction crashed headlong into a stubborn wall of opposition fueled by Southern
angry and a backlash to advances made by the formerly enslaved.
Justice Harlan added, “In my opinion, the judgment this day
rendered will, in time, prove to be quite as pernicious as the decision made by
this tribunal in the Dred Scott Case” (referencing the controversial 1852 decision
about slavery).
History
of Plessy v. Ferguson
The Plessy case began in 1892 in Louisiana which had a “Separate
Car Act”. Railroads operating in Louisiana were required to have ‘equal but
separate’ accommodations for Black and white passengers, and passengers were
not allowed to enter any other space than the one to which they were assigned
based on race. A group of Creole professionals in New Orleans decided to
challenge the law and formed The Citizens Committee to Test the
Constitutionality of the Separate Car Act.
Homer Plessy
They chose Homer
Plessy as the test case. Plessy was seven-eighths white and one-eighth Black.
Plessy purchased a ticket for travel within the state of Louisiana and took a
seat in the white accommodations. He was arrested and charged with violating
the Separate Car Act.
Plessy v.
Ferguson became
the standard for all discrimination cases. And, it was the law of the land
until 1954. Ironically, the railroad played a pivotal role in a case that
changed the course of history, again, for Black America.
Two
Sisters, One Supreme Court Case
Linda Brown
and her little sister lived in Topeka, Kansas in the 1950s. Each morning they
walked through a railroad switchyard to reach the bus stop for a ride to their
all-Black school. There was a white school much closer to their home, but they
were not allowed to attend it. The Brown family decided to sue.
The Supreme
Court ruled in Brown v.
Board of Education of Topeka that state laws establishing ‘separate but
equal’ in public places were unconstitutional.
Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote, “We
conclude that the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place. Separate
educational facilities are inherently unequal.” The law that had been on the
books since Spring 1896 no longer stood in America. It was then the fight began
to convert law into everyday life.