Plessy V. Ferguson
Plessy V. Ferguson was a monumental case that halted the progress of African-American freedom and civil rights in the United States. Not only was the ruling unconstitutional, but it also created the wrongful separate but equal doctrine that would continue to ostracize African-Americans in American society. I am here to argue today that Plessy V. Ferguson should have been overturned, as it was unconstitutional, and as such, justify why the case of Brown V. The Board of Education is also unconstitutional.
In 1896, when Homer Plessy argued that the law violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection clause, which requires that a state must not "deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws," not only was the defendant right, the courts made a mockery of justice in their wrong decision, too. The doctrine of separate but equal was never and will never be a right decision. To think that it was constitutional to separate people based on their skin color is wrong. The constitution of the United States does not know color, it is color-blind, and the decision in Plessy V. Ferguson was an obvious choice to classify Americans into different colors. If this decision was overturned, then there would be no case for the Board of Education. Separating schools on the basis of color is the same logic as separating train cars on the basis of color, and consequently, should also be viewed as unconstitutional. Therefore, this case for Brown V. The Board of Education should be an obvious answer for the courts. If Plessy V. Ferguson was wrong and unconstitutional, then so should this case, too.
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I would also like to add the words of former Supreme Court Justice, John Harlan. In his great dissent in the case of Plessy V. Ferguson, he states that, "the Constitution of the United States does not, I think permit any public authority to know the race of those entitled to be protected in the enjoyment of such rights... I deny that any legislative body or judicial tribunal may have regard to the race of citizens which the civil rights of those citizens are involved." Again, it is not the courts duty to make decisions based on the race of American citizens, rather they should look at the case as a whole and make a fair, unbiased decision in the eyes of the law and not race.
To those who say that the state of Louisiana was making a decision that was equal because it applied a law applicable to both whites and minorities alike, that is also wrong. I quote Justice Harlan again saying, "Everyone knows that the statues in question had its origin in the purpose, not so much to exclude white persons from railroad cars occupied by blacks, as to exclude colored people from coaches occupied by or assigned to white persons." The state of Louisiana had never made any laws that discriminated against whites when it came to traveling in trains across the country. It was under the guise of an equal law that could be applicable to all citizens, white or black, in Louisiana.
I end my argument with the words of Justice Harlan: "We [the United States of America] boast of the freedom enjoyed by our people above all other peoples. But it is difficult to reconcile that boast with the state of the law which, practically, puts the brand of servitude and degradation upon a large class of our fellow citizens, our equals before the law."
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