Question

What were the background and circumstances of plessy vs ferguson

Answer 1

Answer:

Following the end of Reconstruction and the establishment of full citizenship for former slaves, many states started instituting laws that required separate public facilities, such as railroad compartments, for whites and African Americans.

In 1892, a man of mixed race, Homer Plessy, sat down in a whites-only compartment of a railroad car. He was arrested, and each level of the Louisiana court system found him guilty of violating the state’s segregation laws. The state supreme court, however, allowed Plessy’s case to go further in the appeal process.

The case was eventually heard by the US Supreme Court in 1896. The grounds for Plessy’s case rested on the assumption that segregation laws were unconstitutional on the basis of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Explanation:

Answer 2

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 "white's only" car of a Louisiana train. He refused to move to the car reserved for blacks and was arrested.
QUESTION:
Is Louisiana's law mandating racial segregation on its trains an unconstitutional infringement on both the privileges and immunities and the equal protection clauses of the 14th amendment. (Is it unconstitutional, basically.)
ANSWER: No the state law is within constitutional boundaries. The judges based their decision on the separate-but-equal doctrine (keep in mind this was in 1896), that separate facilities for blacks and whites satisfied the Fourteenth Amendment so long as they were equal.  In this case, they ruled that segregation does not, in itself, constitute unlawful discrimination.

Basically everything about Plessey v. Ferguson.