Homer Plessy: The African American Civil Rights Movement

The African American Civil Rights Movement is historically considered to be between the time period of 1954- 1968. However, the struggle of African Americans to gain acceptance into white society and gain basic civil rights goes back much further. The abolition of slavery, African Americas had to deal with hostility as they tried to find their place among a white society who rejected them. In 1963, the Emancipation Proclamation granted African Americans freedom from slavery inside territories rebelling against the federal government and the with the enactment of the Thirteenth Amendment after the Civil War all African American slaves throughout the United States had new found freedom. The nation was ill-prepared to deal with the question of citizenship and the rights of the newly freed slaves.
After the Civil War came …show more content…
In 1892, He purchased a first class train ticket and after boarding the train he sat down in a section of the train that was for whites only. This act caused Plessy to be placed under arrest and imprisoned. The court convicted him of violating a Louisiana Law put into place in 1890 that stated that railway cars were to be spate for colored races and whites (Landmark Cases). Plessy argued that this Louisiana law violated equal protections that were provided under the Thirteenth and Fourteenth amendments to the United States Constitution. He lost his argument twice in the lower courts before he brought it before the United States Supreme Court. In the case of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), the United States Supreme Court upheld the decision that racial segregation was constitutional under the “separate but equal” doctrine in a 7-1 decision (Landmark Cases). This case set the precedent for assessing the constitutionality of laws that allowed for racial segregation. It was not until 1954 that there would be an override to this