Question

What was the decision of the Supreme Court in Plessy v. Ferguson? A. separate but equal was unconstitutional B. separate but equal was constitutional C. separate but unequal was constitutional D. Jim Crow laws were unconstitutional

Answer 1

Answer:  B. Separate but equal was constitutional.

Details / follow-up:

After that 1896 decision, other cases later challenged and overturned the  Plessy v. Ferguson ruling.

Sweatt v. Painter (1950) ruled that forcing Mr. Sweatt (a black man) to attend law school elsewhere or in a segregated program at the University of Texas failed to meet the "separate but equal" standard, because other options such as those would have  lesser facilities, and he would be excluded from interaction with future lawyers who were attending the state university's main law school, available only to white students.  The school experience would need to be truly equal in order for the "separate but equal" policy to be valid.

In 1954, another Supreme Court decision went even further. Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka extended civil liberties to all Americans in regard to access to all levels of education.  The Plessy v. Ferguson case had said that separate, segregated public facilities were acceptable as long as the facilities offered were equal in quality.  In Brown v. Board of Education, segregation was shown to create inequality, and the Supreme Court unanimously ruled segregation to be unconstitutional.  After the Brown v. Board of Education decision, there was a struggle to get states to implement the new policy of desegregated schools, but eventually they were compelled to do so.

Answer 2

The decision of the Supreme Court in Plessy v. Ferguson was B. SEPARATE BUT EQUAL WAS CONSTITUTIONAL.

As the representative of the 7 man-majority of the Supreme Court justices, Justice Henry Brown wrote: "A statute which implies merely a legal distinction between the white and colored races -- has no tendency to destroy the legal equality of the two races. ... The object of the Fourteenth Amendment was undoubtedly to enforce the absolute equality of the two races before the law, but in the nature of things it could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color, or to enforce social, as distinguished from political equality, or a commingling of the two races upon terms unsatisfactory to either."