Separate But Equal Dbq Essay

As the civil war came to an end, the Fourteenth Amendment was passed, granting citizenship to all and putting a stop to slavery. However, while many believed that this would also halt the harsh segregation among the black and white communities, their hopes were soon crushed by the common phrase “separate but equal”. Many believed that it was okay to segregate a person based upon their race if both schools and public places were equal in value; this taught people to believe that they were doing the right thing, according to the amendment, but they were really just following the same laws they did before the civil war. In response to Linda Brown – a third grader from Topeka, Kansas who was denied access to an all-white school just blocks away …show more content…
The Virginia Criminal Code directly stated that any white person caught “instructing them to read or write… shall be punished by confinement in the jail” (Document A), proclaiming their power as the majority over those who did not have the right to speak. The Southern states believed that slavery was justice due to the fact that they were the ones fueling their economy through the maintenance of crops through a plantation owner’s farm. As shown in the Segregation Laws Map of 1953, majority of Southern States began segregating after the fourteenth amendment was passed. Some of these states in included: Florida, Virginia, Tennessee, and Georgia (Document H). Segregation was the separation of schools and public facilities based off of race; since many thought that African American’s were not equal to the White, so the majority alleged that they had no right to be affiliated with the same public facilities. Power among the Southern States was expressed through the majority’s method in finding another way to segregate African Americans in harsh conditions such as those the minority experienced as