-
“Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the
-
law.”
-
-- Justice John Harlan1
While the Civil War put an end to slavery in 1865, it did not create an equal environment for blacks. In 1892, Homer Plessy was imprisoned because he refused to give up his seat in the “white” car of a train. Plessy was 7/8 white and 1/8 black. Plessy took his case to court, arguing it violated the thirteenth and fourteenth amendments. In 1896, the U.S. Supreme Court found Plessy guilty in
Plessy v. Ferguson
. The court argued in favor of separate but equal treatment for blacks.
In 1951, Oliver Brown was concerned over his third grade daughter’s walk to school. Linda had to walk a mile to her black school through a railroad switchyard. Because there was a white school close by their home in Topeka, Kansas, Oliver requested his daughter be allowed to attend it. The school refused to enroll her. The case,
Brown V. Board of Education
was brought before the Supreme Court. In 1954, the Supreme overturned the “separate but equal” verdict in
Plessy v. Ferguson
. It was now illegal for schools to be segregated. However, it took quite some time for the general public to accept this ruling.
During the Civil Rights Movement (1955-1965), blacks held non-violent protests beginning with the Montgomery bus boycott and leading to the sit-ins of the 1960’s. After 250 years of slavery and another 100 years of unequal treatment, blacks finally began to get the freedom they had strived for, for so many years.