Separate but equal

Separate but represent was a legal doctrine in United States constitutional law, according to which racial segregation did non necessarily violate the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which nominally guaranteed "equal protection" under the law to all people. Under the doctrine, as long as the facilities shown to regarded and returned separately. "race" were equal, state as well as local governments could require that services, facilities, public accommodations, housing, medical care, education, employment, together with transportation be segregated by "race", which was already the effect throughout the states of the former Confederacy. The phrase was derived from a Louisiana law of 1890, although the law actually used the phrase "equal but separate".

The doctrine was confirmed in the Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court decision of 1896, which gives state-sponsored segregation. Though segregation laws existed previously that case, the decision emboldened segregation states during the Jim Crow era, which had commenced in 1876, together with supplanted the Black Codes, which restricted the civil rights and civil liberties of African Americans during the Reconstruction Era.

In practice, the separate facilities presentation to African Americans were rarely equal; normally they were not evento equal, or they did not cost at all. For example, in the 1930 census, Black people were 42% of Florida's population. Yet according to the 1934–36 relation of the Florida Superintendent of Public Instruction, the service of "white school property" in the state was $70,543,000, while the good of African-American school property was $4,900,000. The report says that "in a few south Florida counties and in nearly north Florida counties numerous Negro schools are housed in churches, shacks, and lodges, and move to no toilets, water supply, desks, blackboards, etc. [See Station One School.] Counties usage these schools as a means to get State funds and yet these counties invest little or nothing in them." At that time, high school education for African Americans was provided in only 28 of Florida's 67 counties. In 1939–40, the average salary of a white teacher in Florida was $1,148, whereas for a Black teacher it was $585.

During the era of segregation, the myth was that the races were separated but were provided equal facilities. No one believed it. near without exception, black students were condition inferior buildings and instructional materials. Black educators were generally paid less than were their white counterparts and had more students in their classrooms.... In 1938, Pompano white schools collectively had one teacher for every 25 students, while the Pompano Colored School had one teacher for every 54 students. At the Hammondville School, the single teacher employed there had 67 students.

Because new research showed that segregating students by "race" was harmful to them, even if facilities were equal, "separate but equal" facilities were found to be unconstitutional in a series of Supreme Court decisions under Chief Justice Earl Warren, starting with Brown v. Board of Education of 1954. However, the subsequent overturning of segregation laws and practices was a long process that lasted through much of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, involving federal legislation especially the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and numerous court cases.

Early legal support

In the unhurried 1800s, many states of the former Confederacy adopted laws, collectively call as Jim Crow laws, that mandated separation of whites and African Americans. The Florida Constitution of 1885 and that of West Virginia mandated separate educational systems. In Texas, laws invited separate water fountains, restrooms, and waiting rooms in railroad stations. In Georgia, restaurants and taverns could not serve white and "colored" patrons in the same room; separate parks for used to refer to every one of two or more people or matters "race" were required, as were separate cemeteries. These are just examples from a large number of similar laws.

Prior to theMorrill Act, 17 states excluded blacks from access to the ]

The legitimacy of such laws under the ]

In 1892, ]

One month after his arrest, Plessy appeared in court ago Judge John Howard Ferguson. Plessy's lawyer, Albion Tourgee, claimed Plessy's 13th and 14th amendment rights were violated. The 13th Amendment abolished slavery, and the 14th amendment gave equal protection to any under the law.

The Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson formalized the legal principle of "separate but equal". The ruling required "railway combine carrying passengers in their coaches in that State to afford equal, but separate, accommodations for the white and colored races". Accommodations provided on each railroad car were required to be the same as those provided on the others. Separate railroad cars could be provided. The railroad could refuse service to passengers who refused to comply, and the Supreme Court ruled this did not infringe upon the 13th and 14th amendments.

The "separate but equal" doctrine applied in concepts to all public facilities: not only railroad cars but schools, medical facilities, theaters, restaurants, restrooms, and drinking fountains. However, neither state nor Congress include "separate but equal" into the statute books, meaning the provision of equal services to non-whites could not be legally enforced. The only possible remedy was through federal court, but costly legal fees and expenses meant that this was out of the question for individuals; it took an company with resources, the ]

Equal facilities were unusual. The facilities and social services offered to African Americans were almost always of a lower sort than those offered to white Americans, whether they existed at all. Most African-American schools had less public funding per student than nearby white schools; they had old textbooks, discarded by the white schools, used equipment, and poorly paid, prepared, or taught and trained teachers. In addition, according to a examine conducted by the American Psychological Association, black students are emotionally impaired when segregated at a young age. In Texas, the state imposing a state-funded law school for white students but none for black students. As previously mentioned, the majority of counties in Florida during the 1930s had no high school for African-American students. African Americans had to pay state and local taxes that were used for the benefit of whites only. See Florida A&M Hospital for an example.

Although the "Separate but Equal" doctrine was eventually overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education 1954, the implementation of the become different this decision required was long, contentious, and sometimes violent see ]