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What Is Plessy V. Ferguson Play In The Civil Rights Movement?

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Plessy v. Ferguson was one of the most significant cases of the Civil Rights Movement because of its negative results. Homer Plessy, in support of the Citizens' Committee to Test the Separate Car Act, challenged the state law by sitting in a whites-only train car though he was one-eighth black. The committee planned to challenge segregation in court in hopes that the Supreme Court would deem the law unconstitutional. Plessy’s lawyers said that his rights were

violated due to the Fourteenth Amendment, which gave equal rights to male citizens of all races. However, the Supreme Court had previously ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment only applied to federal law, not state law. The Supreme Court eventually decided against Plessy ruling that the 14th Amendment didn't apply to state law and that segregation did not take away black people's rights because the facilities were separate but equal. …show more content…
White and black people were separated in places that had been integrated before, like public transportation, restaurants, and even bathrooms. Some laws restricted black people and white people from even being near each other; a white baseball team could not play within two blocks of a black team's field and it was thought of as horrendous to consider a white person marrying outside of their own race. Segregation laws not only widened the physical gaps between black people and white people, but also took away the opportunity for many relationships to be formed and distanced the idea each race had of the other. This made it easy for white people with societal advantages to demonize black people, which was very

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