I will examine and analyze how the law worked in the past and how the combination of these factors have lead to changes of the Fourteenth Amendment, and created equal rights for all people, despite their racial makeup. .
Following the civil war and the abolishment of slavery, states began passing statutes that separated the blacks from the whites. Although the black population was now freed of slavery, they were still denied fundamental rights. Learning from states like Texas and Florida, Louisiana also passed a statute that ordered the separation of races on the railroads, known as the Separate Car Act (604). Blacks were granted the right to ride trains, they were not however, allowed to ride in the same car as the whites, they were supposed to be separated. Under the Separate Car Act, that sort of segregation was completely legal, although it was disapproved by blacks and whites alike. This statute provoked the Citizens Committee to form. Their goal was to bring an end to the Separate Car Act. Following the creation of the committee, members knew they would have to take actions against the act (605). Albion Tourgée, who served as the committee's lawyer began brainstorming a way to bring down the law. He and the committee came up with a plan they hoped would bring an end to the Louisiana law. It was decided that a man by the name of Homer Plessy, who was part black but looked completely Caucasian, would sit in the "whites only" section, as an attempt to challenge the statute (605). As anticipated, Plessy was arrested on the grounds that he had violated the Louisiana statute. This became a landmark case and made it to the U.S. Supreme Court as Plessy v Ferguson. In order to understand how equal protection rights have changed historically, this case must first be examined.
Plessy v Ferguson made it to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1896 where it was decided by the majority of the court that the Fourteenth Amendment was not created to "abolish distinctions based upon color and that laws permitting and requiring their separation in places do not imply an inferiority of either race" (605).
