Plessy v. Ferguson

In the case of Plessy v. Ferguson, the outcome was in "cahoots" with the time period that the case happened. The state of Louisiana enacted a law that required separate railway cars for blacks and whites. In 1892, Homer Adolph Plessy; who was seven-eighths Caucasian; took a seat in a "whites only" car of a Louisiana train. He refused to move to the car reserved for blacks and was arrested.

Plessy was fighting for the equal protection clause under the 14th Amendment. The ruling ended in 7-1 in favor of Ferguson ruled that the state law in Louisiana is constitutional. The majority opinion, upheld state-imposed racial segregation. The justices based their decision on the separate-but-equal doctrine, that separate facilities for blacks and whites satisfied the Fourteenth Amendment so long as they were equal.

Justice John Marshall Harlan wrote the dissenting opinion. Harlan argued that segregational laws, was based on the assumption that “colored citizens are so inferior and degraded that they cannot be allowed to sit in public coaches occupied by white citizens.” Harlan believed that these laws should be struck down. He is quoted saying, "the constitution must be “color-blind,” and that it could allow “no superior, dominant ruling class of citizens.”