Separate education offered blacks was anything but the equal of the education offered whites. In physical plants, teachers' salaries, levels of teacher training, counseling services, curricula-in every measurable aspect-the Black colleges lacked professional schools black high schools emphasized vocational training and minimized preparation for college. In education, however, inequalities of enormous proportion persisted up to the decision in brown v. Similarly, a public swimming pool might be reserved for whites three days a week, reserved for blacks three days, and closed the other day. In railroad cars, it was easy to achieve a rough equality of physical facilities. The question of justifications for inequality was largely neglected the Court focused on the question whether inequality existed. (See badges of servitude.) Yet Plessy set the terms of judicial inquiry in a way that ultimately undermined the separate but equal principle. But the Plessy opinion had rejected the claim that racial separation itself imposed on blacks an inequality in the form of inferiority. Given the undoubted fact that segregation was imposed for the purpose of maintaining blacks in a condition of inferiority, the very term separate but equal is internally inconsistent. Throughout this system of segregation, the formal assumption was that facilities for blacks and whites might be separate, but they were equal. Some state institutions, such as universities, simply excluded blacks altogether in most southern states there were separate state colleges for blacks. rice) in state offices in public parks, beaches, swimming pools, and golf courses in prisons and jails. The races were separated by the law's command in courtrooms in the public schools (see gong lum v. boston.)Īlthough the doctrine originated in the context of state regulation of private conduct, it was soon extended to validate segregation in state-operated facilities. In support of this separate but equal doctrine, the Court drew on a pre-civil war decision in Massachusetts, upholding racial segregation in the public schools. ferguson (1896), the majority concluded that, so long as the facilities for each race were equal, the enforced separation of the races did not itself impose any inequality on black persons. When the Supreme Court held such a law valid in plessy v. Graphics: Fred Hassell ’11, SCRC Student Assistant.Īn image of the installed exhibit is available at the SCRC's Flickr page.The first type of racial segregation law to spread over the South was the "Jim Crow car" law, requiring blacks and whites to be seated separately in railroad passenger cars. This exhibit is part of "From Fights to Rights: The Long Road to a More Perfect Union," Swem Library's project to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Civil War and the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Movement.Ĭurators: Alan Zoellner, Government Information Librarian and Susan Riggs, Manuscripts and Rare Books Librarian Exhibit design and installation: Chandi Singer, Burger Archives Assistant Priscilla Wood, SCRC Volunteer Staci Chapman ’11, SCRC Student Assistant. Governors were reluctant to implement such a policy, and heels would be dragged and subterfuges used for many years to try to get around full compliance. He said the localities should act to move to compliance, and used the phrase, “with all deliberate speed.”Southern political leaders now had to cope with school integration. Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote the opinion in what became known as Brown v. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” The court held that the plaintiffs were deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. Ferguson doctrine of “separate but equal” for educational purposes: “We conclude that, in the field of public education, the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place. Board (1954) The United States Supreme Court overthrew the Plessy v. Board decision as well as letters found in Virginia politician’s papers in the Special Collections Research Center. Ferguson decision, segregated facilities, sub-standard classrooms and a copy of the Brown v. Materials in the exhibit show the racism prevalent in the United States and the legal decisions that began to chip away at the problem. Ferguson (1896), decided by the United States Supreme Court with only one dissenting vote, made “separate but equal” the law of the land. The end of the Civil War brought the passage of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution.
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