- [Narrator] After the Civil War,
the United States embarked
on an era of reconstruction
during which the country grappled
with the painful history of slavery.
The 13th, 14th, and 15th
Amendments to the Constitution
sought to eradicate the taint
of slavery by outlawing it,
and guaranteeing black
citizens equal treatment
under the law and the right to vote.
However, there was a lot of
resistance to racial equality,
particularly in the south.
By the 1870s reconstruction
had fizzled out
giving way to the Jim Crow era.
Named after the minstrel
show Jump Jim Crow,
this period was defined
by racial segregation laws
passed by southern states.
Plessy versus Ferguson
is the now infamous case
in which the United States Supreme Court
declared it constitutional
for races to be kept separate.
In 1892 Homer Plessy took a trip.
He bought a first class
ticket, got onto the trian,
and settled in one of the coaches.
The conductor told Plessy to
move to a different coach,
but he refused.
So Plessy was thrown off the
train and into a jail cell.
Under an 1890 state law
railways within Louisiana
were required to have "equal but separate"
coaches for black and white passengers.
Anyone refusing to sit
in the assigned coach
could be fined $25 or
imprisoned for up to 20 days.
As a U.S. citizen who was
7/8 white and 1/8 black,
Plessy argued that he was
white and deserved to sit
in the coach reserved
for white passengers.
However, under Louisiana law
Plessy was considered black.
So Plessy was put on trial in state court
for breaking the law by
sitting in the wrong coach.
At trial Plessy argued that
the law was unconstitutional,
but the government disagreed.
Judge Ferguson sided with the government.
If convicted Plessy would
be sentenced to prison
and charged a fine.
Plessy asked the Louisiana Supreme Court
to issue a writ of prohibition
against Judge Ferguson
to prevent him from enforcing the law.
But the Louisiana Supreme Court
found the law constitutional.
So Plessy asked for writ of error
from the United States Supreme Court.
The U.S. Supreme Court reviewed the case
to determine whether
Louisiana law requiring
racially segregated railway
coaches was constitutional.
Writing for the majority
Justice Brown concluded
that the law didn't
violate the 14th Amendment.
The Amendment was designed
to make everyone equal
under the law, but it
wasn't intended to eliminate
distinctions based on race.
The majority thought
that political equality
of the races wasn't
compromised by segregation.
State laws creating racially
segregated facilities
thus didn't violate the
equal protection clause
if those facilities were
"separate but equal."
Laws requiring segregation
could be legitimate
exercises of state police power
provided they were reasonable
and based on good faith
rather than racist motives.
Here, Louisiana was
simply respecting the fact
that the two races preferred
remaining segregated.
In other words, it wasn't the laws job,
or even within the laws power
to force the races to mix.
The court also found
that the 13th Amendment,
which Plessy argued was
violated by the Louisiana law,
was a non-issue because
the case had nothing to do
with abolishing slavery
or involuntary servitude.
Therefore, the court affirmed
the Louisiana Supreme Court's decision.
In a powerful dissent Justice Harlan found
that the Louisiana law was discriminatory,
because it sought to keep black passengers
from coaches reserved
for white passengers.
Harlan stated that the
law was clearly intended
to keep black people
away from white people.
This was a violation of civil rights.
Harlan said the
Constitution is color-blind,
and a state couldn't
constitutionally deprive citizens
of their rights based on their races.
For Justice Harlan the majorities decision
was like the Supreme Court's
infamous self-inflicted wound
in Dred Scott versus Sandford.
Harlan thought Plessy
would foster animosity,
and basically predicted
that it would be overturned.
Harlan would have found the
Louisiana law unconstitutional.
It's worth noting, however,
that as progressive
as Justice Harlan's views were,
he didn't believe in equal
rights for all mankind.
His dissent distinguished Chinese people,
and he didn't quibble with the exclusion
of the Chinese race from citizenship.
The Supreme Court's decision
in Plessy versus Ferguson
justified racial discrimination
in the United States
based on the separate but equal doctrine.
In 1954, Plessy was finally overturned
by Brown versus Board
of Education of Topeka.
