However, many southern states found ways around the laws to disenfranchise the black populations. They did this by introducing a ‘Grandfather Clause’, which is that only people whose grandfather voted, gave them the ability to vote. Also literacy test was another method used, which in most ways wasn’t made fairly and even well educated people were disenfranchised and not allowed to vote. However, in 1946 President Truman established The President’s Committee on ‘Civil rights’, producing a report examining the experiences of racial minorities in America. The report was called ‘To Secure These Rights’, this report highlighted the problems facing African Americans and proposed radical changes to make American society better.
It provided that there could be separate public facilities, like schools and movie theaters as long as the facilities were near equal in equality. The problem was that the court did not define “equal” in the quality, and the facilities for the blacks became second class. The government was willing to make it seems as though blacks would have rights due to the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. The Supreme Court decision was a major setback for African Americans seeking equality in the United States. The ruling further paved the way for numerous state laws throughout the country making segregation which resulted in making discrimination legal in almost all parts of daily life.
Many Southern states were segregated, they followed the supreme courts decision in 1896; 'Separate but equal' this meant that they were still segregated but blacks had equal rights. Segregation was the separation of white people from black, some states tried to keep control over black people's segregation by; 'Jim crow' laws which kept black people segregated/separated from white, this involved separate schools, toilets and drinking fountains. Desegregation had become a problem in the 1950's, largely because of the racial hatred of white southerners towards blacks, this racial hatred had originated from the attitudes of white people towards black people after slavery was abolished in 1864, many southern states had 'Jim crow' laws which discriminated against African Americans. However, in 1954 the Brown family challenged these laws by suing the city school board for forbidding their 8 year old daughter, who was black, from attending the white school which was nearby, instead Linda Brown was forced to attend the segregated school which was a long distance away. The Brown family's case was brought to the Supreme Court by the NAACP; they were an organisation which fought for the rights of coloured people.
These laws denied black Americans the equal rights of white citizens which re-imposed white supremacy and meant they remained as second-class citizens. It wasn’t only the Jim Crow laws but under the Fifteenth Amendment, black people had the legal right to vote throughout America. Nonetheless, the southern states found devious ways to disenfranchise the local black population. For example, some states introduced a grandfather clause, which meant that people could only vote if their grandfathers had been able to vote. Other states introduced literacy tests as criteria for voting.
Chief Justice Taney held a strong disposition towards blacks and wanted to do everything in his power to ensure that they didn’t become citizens under that Constitution. He thought of them as nothing, “Blacks, on the other hand, were not included and were not intended to be included, under the word “citizens” in the Constitution. (Bell 16) Chief Justice Taney considered blacks to be worse than the Indians, stating that even though the Indians were also a lesser individual than whites because they were free and worked together in small tribes which were governed by their own laws. He also viewed their governments as foreign and was very pleased at the fact that Indian governments had been taken over by the white race. He referred to it as if the white race was doing the Indians a favor by taking them over and naturalizing them so that they could become citizens in the United States.
Dr. King points out that humans are of the same “classification” despite their color, and that color should not affect the way we view or treat others. King also points out that anyone suffering affects the lives of innumerable others. We are “tied in a single garment of destiny”, and while all humans share the same destiny, it may be unknown. Dr. Martin Luther King is pointing out that our destinies are so to call weaving together. Together as a society, a single persons destiny weaved together with others symbolizes a combined destiny.
The State of Louisiana passed Act 111 that required separate living quarters for African Americans and Whites on railroads. It specified if blacks and whites cant be together the must be kept "equal". Several African Americans and Whites in New Orleans formed an association. It was formed to test the Separate Car Act. They enlisted Homer Plessy, who was one-eighth black.
So it decided to identify the problems and sort them out some of the problems identified were that even though lynching was illegal in America at this time whites still did it to any blacks they saw fit. Plus the report finally stated that whites and blacks were definitely not equal showing how the ‘separate but equal act’ was all one big façade. Therefore, the American government took action to try and make the blacks equal, even though the current president, Truman, was known as a bit of a racist himself he still agreed that something needed to be done to help the African Americans. They decided to enforce reforms such as all lynching cases to be seen by state law enforcement officers to make sure all cases were given the correct punishment as they won’t be seen by all white local courts that would always let the whites get away with it, along with this reform they enforced federal anti-lynching laws to prosecute all who failed to
Brown v. Board of Education The case involving Brown vs. Board of education was a very controversial case. In which segregation was the core suspect. The Brown versus Board of Education decision was an immense influence on desegregation of schools and a milestone in the movement for equality. On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education was unanimous, ruling that separate but equal is inherently unequal. They ruled that no state had the power to pass a law that went against the 14th amendment of the United States Constitution.
Plessy v. Ferguson,, was a landmark United States Supreme Court decision upholding the constitutionality of state laws requiring racial segregation in public facilities under the doctrine of "separate but equal". The decision was handed down by a vote of 7 to 1 with the majority opinion written by Justice Henry Billings Brown and the dissent written by Justice John Marshall Harlan. Louisiana Justice Edward Douglass White was one of the majority: he was a member of the New Orleans Pickwick Club and the Crescent City White League, the latter a paramilitary organization that had supported white supremacy with violence through the 1870s to suppress black voting and regain political power by white property owners. "Separate but equal" remained standard doctrine in U.S. law until its repudiation in the 1954 Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education. After the Supreme Court ruling, the New Orleans Comité des Citoyens, which had brought the suit and had arranged for Homer Plessy's arrest in an act of civil disobedience in order to challenge Louisiana's segregation law, stated, "We, as freemen, still believe that we were right and our cause is sacred."