Black Code Dbq

Plessey boarded a car of the East Louisiana Railroad that was designated by whites for use by white patrons only. Although Plessey was one-eighth black and seven-eighths white, under Louisiana state law he was classified as an African-American, and thus required to sit in the "colored" car. When Plessey refused to leave the white car and move to the colored car, he was arrested and jailed. The Court rejected Plessey's arguments based on the Thirteenth Amendment, seeing no way in which the Louisiana statute violated it. In addition, the majority of the Court rejected the view that the Louisiana law implied any inferiority of blacks, in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Instead, it contended that the law separated the two races as a matter of public policy.

Some northerners believed that the black codes where a backdoor attempt at reestablishing slavery. I do agree, I agree because they wanted slavery they wanted people to work for them and not have to pay them. The black codes were put into place to restrict what blacks did. When blacks gained rights the black codes basically just took them away. White’s would scare them into working for them and the black codes just helped that. They would either pay them really low wages or put them debt. This is just a few reasons why I believe that the black codes were just a backdoor attempt to get slavery back.

The Brown v. Education was a case that stands out in history due to its precedent of how “separate but equal” which violated the 13th and 14th amendment. “ Separate but equal” was created by the Plessy v. Ferguson case.What began this case dates back to 1890, where in Louisiana a law was passed called the Separate Car Act. In this act railway companies must have separate but equal railway cars for white and non-white passengers. If any passenger should sit in the wrong railway car they would be fined $25 or be thrown in jail for 20 days. In 1982, Homer Plessy, who was one-eighths black and seventh-eighths white, bought himself a first-class ticket and sat in a whites only car. He was asked to give up his seat but he refused and was sentence

In the Plessy v. Ferguson case of 1896, the Supreme Court ruled that the “separate but equal” law did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment—guarantees all Americans equal treatment under the law.

Thirteen years later, in 1896, a new case appeared that would set a precedent for racial discrimination for years to come, and ultimately, drive a nigh irremovable wedge between the blacks and the whites in the south. The case in question arose when a seven-eigths caucasian man, Homer Adolph Plessy, broke a Lousiana law barring black people from sitting in certain train cars. Upon refusing to move, Plessy was arrested and brought to court where the case made its way up through district and appellate courts and all the way to the Supreme Court. The question, posed by this case was: is the Louisiana law mandating racial segregation on trains unconstitutional under the fourteenth amendment? The court decided, in a seven to one decision written by Justice Brown, that the different train cars for blacks and whites weren’t a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. In his conclusion, Justice Brown wrote that the Fourteenth Amendment was intended to provide complete equality for all races before the law. However, he said, it is not intended to eradicate racial distinctions, and enforce social equality, nor is it an attempt to force a collusion of races. This conclusion gave rise to the infamous Separate but Equal Doctrine, a precedent that is a direct cause of Brown vs Board of Education. Though it was not stated in Brown’s conclusion, this doctrine insinuated that so

2) Case Facts- Homer Plessy, a self described half black man decided to sit in a coach reserved for white citizens only on a Louisiana railcar. He was jailed, subsequently however during his trial he appealed to the court on the grounds that the Louisiana statute that forbade him to sit in this section of the coach was in clear violation of the both the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution. An 1883 case found that “as long as a clear distinction of race existed, the statute had no tendency to destroy the legal equality of the two races, or establish a state of involuntary servitude. This is relevant as the Thirteenth Amendment references “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for a crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.” Other cases such as Roberts v. City of Boston in 1849 supported Justice Browns argument, citing that the Boston school committee had power to make provision for the instruction of colored children in separate schools established exclusively for them, and to prohibit their attendance upon the other schools. Other cases include the same provisional powers for interracial marriage and political equality amongst blacks and whites.

Ancillary, employees who quit before the end date of their labor contract could be arrested and returned to their masters by a judge’s order. Southern Black Codes counted on vagrancy laws to coerce freedmen to sign labor contracts. Not all state constitutions limited these laws to unemployed blacks, many included others such as peddlers and gamblers. The code provided that vagrants could be arrested and imprisoned with harsh labor. However, the county sheriff could rent black vagrants to white employers to work off their sentence.Southern states constitutions also executed apprenticeship laws which yet again supplied white employers with black orphans, and the children of vagrants. These codes allowed courts to apprentice black children against their will until the age of 21 for men, and 18 for women. For another time, those in charge of the children were able to inflict whippings as punishment. Lastly, most Southern states established a racially segregated court systems for both civil and criminal cases. This was also the circumstance for any case that either involved a black defendant or plaintiff. The African American courts exclusively granted black witnesses the right to to testify in court, only in those pertaining to the person or property of an African American. Any crimes that a white person believed and African American may have committe had excruciating penalties. For the most part crimes such as, rebellion, arson, burglary, or assaulting a white woman

This shift guided the downfall of black legal and political rights. In 1896, the Supreme Court in the Plessy v. Ferguson case endorsed legalized segregation. The Plessy decision established the courts verdict that public accommodation should be separate but ‘equal’. Black people received separate public schools, transport services, water fountains, restaurants and hotels. Plessy v. Ferguson implied a segregation of blacks and whites on the terms that such segregation was equal on both parts, and thus it failed on its second greatest task – quality was not

As Justice Henry Brown once said, “the object of the 14th amendment was undoubtedly to enforce the absolute equality of the two races”, but racial segregation was a key point in these cases. Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Board of Education are two major cases in the United States that inspired the movement of civil rights for African Americans. In 1896 Homer Plessy fought for his 13th and 14th amendments. While in 1952, Linda Brown argued that segregated schools violated the 14th amendment. The 14th amendment states “nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of laws” (Plessy). Meaning that everyone is equal and everyone shall be treated equal by law. So, due to their rights Plessy and Brown took their cases to court. First, the case of Plessy v. Ferguson.

June, 1892, Homer A. Plessy was arrested and jailed for boarding a car that was intended to seat white patrons only. He was a mix of two races, white and black. Plessy was 7/8ths white and only a meager 1/8th black. He was allowed to ride in his cart until he made his race known to the conductor, who then asked him to move to the cars for black patrons. When Plessy refused, the conductor had him arrested. On May 18, 1896 in a 7-1 decision, the policy of “separate but equal” was declared constitutional and enacted. This policy of segregation lasted almost 60 years until Brown vs. Board overturned the law, announcing it to be unconstitutional in 1954. The outcome of Plessy vs. Ferguson welded segregation into law, ultimately resulting in the perpetuation of pre-existing divisions in America.

After Louisiana passed the Louisiana’s Separate Car Act of 1890, Plessy argued that the separated but equal doctrine was a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment (“Homer Plessy,” n.d.). If laws were created to prohibit the separated but equal doctrine why was Plessy demanded to leave the white section although he was a mixed man? Plessy was only one-eighth African American and seven-eighths white therefore he fought for his rights by trying to appeal the decision of the court ruling

From the end of Reconstruction in 1877 to the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement in 1954, laws were in place that enforced racial segregation (referred to as Jim Crow laws). Beginning in the late 1870s , Southern state legislatures, which were no longer under the control of freedmen and carpetbaggers, passed legislation that required whites to be separated from “persons of colour” in schools and public transportation, which was anyone who was strongly suspected of black ancestry. Along with this, the segregation principle extended to theatres, restaurants, cemeteries, and parks in an attempt to prevent contact between whites and blacks as equal members of society. At the state and local level, it was codified and in the infamous U.S. Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson. On June 7, 1892, Homer Plessy bought a first-class ticket to Covington at the Press Street Depot in New Orleans. After telling the conductor that he was a “colored man”, the former asked him to move to the coloured car, but the latter refused because he exclaimed that he was an American citizen and that he intends to ride to Covington. Soon afterward, Plessy was arrested and dragged off of the train. Four months after his arrest, Plessy’s attorneys entered a plea claiming that Louisiana’s Separate Car Act, which Plessy violated, was unconstitutional. Consequently, this would mean that the court didn’t have the jurisdiction to hear or determine all of the facts. Also, his attorneys claimed that the

On June 7, 1892, he purchased a first-class ticket for a trip between New Orleans and Covington, La., and seated himself in a white compartment. He was challenged by the conductor and was later was arrested and charged with violating the Separate Car Act after he refused to move to a car for African Americans. Plessy was brought to trial in a New Orleans court and convicted of violating the 1890 law. He filed a petition against the judge in the trial, John H. Ferguson, who upheld the law. After the state Supreme Court affirmed the district court’s ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari, and oral arguments were held on April 13, 1896. The law was challenged in the Supreme Court, arguing, “...the segregation law violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which forbids states from denying to any person within their jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, as well as the Thirteenth Amendment, which banned slavery” (McBride). The Court ruled that, while the object of the Fourteenth Amendment was to create absolute equality of the two races before the law, such equality extended only so far as civil and political rights, not social rights. The Court avoided discussion of the

First, In 1892, Plessy refused to sit in a Jim Crow car. He was arrested, after arguing with the conductor, and took the case all the way to the Supreme Court. Then, he was brought before Judge Ferguson of the Criminal Court of New Orleans. The case upheld state racial segregation laws for public facilities under the doctrine of "separate but equal.” Plessy’s lawyer argued that the law was unconstitutional. Unfortunately, Segregation and discrimination was still a law after the case. This case gave prejudice a greater opportunity to spread segregation. John Marshall wrote, “Slavery as an institution tolerated by law would, it is true, have disappeared from our country, but there would remain a power in the States, by sinister legislation, to interfere with the blessings of freedom; to regulate civil rights common to all citizens, upon the basis of race; and to

    On June 7th, 1892, Homer Plessy paid for and rode the East Louisiana Railway from New Orleans to Covington. He paid for first class and was riding alongside white counterparts. This may seem like a harmless ordeal to some, but a key fact is missing. Homer Plessy was an “octoroon”, meaning he was one-eighth black. Under Louisiana law, people of color were forced to sit separately from whites due to the Separate Car Act. Even though Plessy was only one-eighth black, he was still considered a “person of color” and was forced to move into a separate accommodation. Homer Plessy,outraged, refused to comply and was imprisoned. Plessy then filed a complaint against the state of Louisiana claiming that the reason for his arrest went against the Fourteenth Amendment. While on trial, Judge John Howard Ferguson decided that the state of Louisiana “could choose to regulate railroad companies that operated only within the state”, thus finding Plessy guilty of his refusal to leave the white accommodation. Homer Plessy's case Plessy v. Ferguson eventually reached the Supreme Court where they found Homer guilty once again. This case can best be understood by the legitimacy of Homer Plessy’s standing in court , the idea of equality, and the Fourteenth Amendment.