However, the doctrine of "states' rights," also stemming from the Constitution, encouraged the southern states to believe that they could deal with their Negro residents as they chose, as only slavery had been specifically banned. They began imposing more and more restrictive rules on their Black residents. The Ku Klux Klan formed after the federally managed "Reconstruction" ended. The KKK terrorized Blacks who violated the views of the local Whites regarding how Blacks should behave and conduct themselves.
At the end of the 19th century, in the ruling Plessy vs. Ferguson (p. 133), the Supreme Court ruled that a court ruling could not force equality if one race were inferior to the other, and refused to reverse segregation rules. This ruling justified all sorts of horrific practices, including segregated schools, which were separate but often not equal. Typically these schools did not have libraries, and typically the textbooks were outdated textbooks sent to the Black schools after the White schools had replaced them with newer, more up-to-date ones. It is hard today to understand how the Supreme Court came to its Plessy vs. Ferguson conclusions given the very explicit statements in the 14th Amendment. However, the Court concluded that the 14th Amendment did not require that everyone be treated the same all the time. It allowed local and state authorities to continue to require Blacks to use separate cars on the trains, separate waiting rooms for public transportation, etc. It wasn't until 1954 with the Brown vs. Board of Education ruling that the Supreme Court declared that "separate" was inherently unequal.
What was the state of race relations at the turn of the century?
In spite of the passage of the 15th Amendment guaranteeing the right to vote, African-Americans were routinely blocked from voting by poll taxes, literacy tests given to them but not White voters and outright intimidation (2). "Jim Crow" laws continued to be passed throughout the southern states to reinforce segregation. Blacks had to attend special schools,...
In the Struggle for Democracy (Greenberg, 483-84) the author explains that gradually, little by little, the Supreme Court of the United States responded to the need to rule segregation unconstitutional. And in the process the Court ruled that any law passed using the criteria of race was also unconstitutional. The Brown v. Board of Education vote in 1954 meant that segregation in schools was not constitutional and it was the
Court Service Management How does a court system cope with a changing of the guard when a new administration is elected and key executives and managers are replaced, and/or when policy changes direction as a new political party assumes power? The court deals with transitions of power by maintaining the established traditions and principles from the Constitution. This is used to ensure that case precedent is respected and to provide stability for
But if Houston insisted that Plessy be enforced that is, if the NAACP sued a state to make its schools for black children equal to those for whites which Plessy did require then he could undermine segregation. (Jomills Henry Braddock. A Long-Term View of School Desegregation: Some Recent Studies of Graduates as Adults. Phi Delta Kappan. 259-61. 1984) He reasoned that states would either have to build new schools for
Race, Culture and Public Safety How have this week's readings challenged your own beliefs about race and culture and its relevance to the construction of public safety in America? What had a particular impact on your ideas about emerging safety issues? These can be negative as well as positive comments. Also, consider ethnicity. Police officers often find themselves torn between two competing needs. On one hand, they must serve the laws of
It is difficult to argue that the death penalty is being applied evenly and fairly as required by the Supreme Court's Furman v. Georgia decision. In fact, it could be argued, with statistics like these, that the application of the death penalty is being influenced by racial factors. If the race of the victim is a factor in deciding whether or not the defendant receives the death penalty, then the
Same Sex Marriage Clearly explain the SCOTUS's ruling on same-sex marriage. Make sure to discuss the constitutional issues on this ruling. In Obergefell v. Hodges, the U.S. Supreme Court is focusing on if same sex couples have the right to marry. This is because a number of states had bans on issuing marriage licenses for these kinds of relationships. Instead, all applicants must be a male and female versus two of the
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