Kwon Bill’s Reviews > Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy's Guide to the Constitution > Status Update

It's a classic liberal mistake: conservatives used a tool for evil, so instead of using that same tool for good, let's never use tools. Some-times, I swear, it can seem like liberals spend all their time inventing ways to get their asses kicked.

Jim Crow Era: The ruling gave constitutional backing to Jim Crow laws, entrenching decades of legally enforced segregation across the American South.

Overturned: The precedent stood for 58 years until it was unanimously struck down by Brown v. Board of Education in 1954.

The Verdict: The Supreme Court ruled 7–1 that segregated facilities did not violate the Thirteenth Amendment (as it did not re-establish slavery) or the Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection clause).

The Law: Louisiana's Separate Car Act of 1890 required railway companies to provide separate but equal accommodations for white and Black passengers.

The Protest: The Comité des Citoyens (Citizens' Committee) deliberately orchestrated the test case. Because Plessy appeared white, he was able to buy a first-class ticket, board the car, and was then arrested by a private detective hired by the committee.

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) was a landmark Supreme Court case that legalized state-sponsored racial segregation under the "separate but equal" doctrine. It originated in New Orleans on June 7, 1892, when Homer Plessy, an activist who was seven-eighths white, was arrested for refusing to leave a "whites-only" railcar.

Seneca Village was founded in 1825 by free Black Americans, the first such community in the city, although under Dutch rule there was a "half-free" community of African-owned farms north of New Amsterdam. At its peak, the community had approximately 225 residents, three churches, two schools, and three cemeteries.