Today, Mr. McClung asked us to write a blog post on a court case’s events, court ruling, and impact on the rest of society. I chose to write about the Plessy vs. Ferguson case. Basically, a man 7/8 white and 1/8 black who had white skin tried to sit on an all white railroad car. He refused to sit in the black railroad car and was arrested for violating “separate but equal” railroad accommodations. Plessy was found guilty under the circumstances that the law was a reasonable exercise of the state’s police powers in the state. Plessy lost his case. In this process, there was an issue found between the Fourteenth Amendment and this case. Basically the fourteenth amendment states that no state can deny a man life, liberty, or property without going through court, or “due process,” so every man deserves a fair trial. Though he went through the court process, the ruling is not logical. Jim Crow Laws are partially to blame for the unfairness of the trial. Even though every man, no matter what race, was “free,” no black man was actually free. The separation of public water fountains, restrooms, transportation, and schools proves that racism and slavery, in some sense, were still alive in the United States. If any man, no matter what race, boarded public transportation, he should’ve been able to sit wherever he wanted and stay aboard. Otherwise, no one could rightfully say that slavery had been abolished. What makes the situation even more unfair is that the man was 1/8 black, not even 100% African American and had white skin. Any man in this situation should have been able to win this court case easily, and the case shouldn’t have been taken to court in the first place.

Kelly N.