The movie Separate But Equal is a true story about the myth that one race is superior to another race simply because of skin color which is called racism. Today, racism is a problem that everyone must face no matter what race a person is. Many attempts have been made by the government to ease racial tension. An example of these attempts would be the separation of races that occurred in the middle of the 20th century. .
The movie entitled Separate But Equal is about discrimination and inequality in the 1950's. In the 1950's there was segregation in the schools upheld by the Supreme Court decision, Plessy vs. Ferguson. This decision stated that blacks and whites were to be separated in most cases as long as things were equal for both races. In 1952, black schools were quite inferior to white schools. A South Carolina school teacher went to the superintendent of schools and asked if some changes could be made to equalize the schools. The superintendent refused. The South Carolina teacher was outraged and decided that he wanted to take them to court to achieve equal education for the black children. He did not think that it was fair that the school board spent $179 on education for every white child and only $43 on education for every black child. The head of the NAACP, Thurgood Marshall also thought that this situation was unconstitutional so he decided to be the lawyer for the South Carolina school teacher. Thurgood Marshall's goal was a bit different than the teachers. He did not want to uphold the Plessy vs. Ferguson decision, he wanted to abolish it. He argued that no matter how hard people tried to enforce it, separate could not be equal. They first took their case to the state supreme court. Even though they were able to show sufficient evidence that separate could not be equal, they lost. The court ruled that they did not have the power to overrule a U.S. Supreme Court decision. Then in 1953, Marshall and the teacher appealed to the U.
