Plessy v. Ferguson is the most referenced of the Supreme Courts adverse and injurious rulings, but it was a carbon copy of the Civil Rights case of 1883. As a matter of fact, the two main precedents it based its opinions on were the Scott and Civil Rights rulings. The Plessy ruling was a mere affirmation of Scott and the Civil Rghts decisions certifying national discrimination against Africans in America. In the book, The Constitution and The New Jim Crow, Chapter 4, Jumpin Jim Crow, page 79, we see that Jim Crow was already spinning about, hopping about, and doing just so, and that everytime an African jumped, he jumped Jim Crow. By the time of Plessy, the economic foundation that Africans had built for themselves was in its 15th year, and we didnt give a damn what white supremacy was doing. We were doing the greatest thing for ourselves by ourselves that we hadnt done for tens of thousands of years. This is a hidden history that we could do well to look into because it holds the key to what we must do for ourselves now. Homer Plessy was an Octoroon, what we would call damned nigh white. He was from the Treme District, an old African community that was built by gens du colour (free men of color), Creoles who were just as prejudiced against their darker brethren as any good ol white supremacist. They were mortified that they were unable to cross the white line like Celestials (Orientals, Hindu Indians, and Arabs), because of the one drop rule of white supremacy, and wanted to do something about it. He was in a group of young turks. Their actions were not an innocent act of being caught off-guard and resisting persecution off the bat. It was a well organized plan of conscientious objection by breaking the law to challenge it with the law. They were all well educated, legally trained yong men who wanted to boldly test oppression. The case failed in Municipal Court, failed on appeal in the Criminal Court, failed in the Appellate Court, and again in the Louisiana Supreme Court. The Ferguson in the case was not a private citizen, but the judge who had found Plessy guilty of disturbing the peace, Judge John H. Ferguson. None of these individuals were bit players, but calculating players in a game of social chess. The case went to the Supreme Court where, once again, the judgements and rulings of the lower courts were affirmed in a 7-1 ruling with one justice absent without a ruling. Justice Henry B. Brown read the opinion, stating the same as Justice Bradley in the Civil Rights case of 1883, that the States had no power to regulate the behavior of private individuals. Brown cited Bradleys grimace It would be running the slavery issue into the ground to make it apply to every act of discrimination which a person may see fit to make as to guests he will entertain, or as to people he will take into his coach or cab or car; or admit to his concert or theatre, or deal with in other matters of intercourse or business. Brown described the petitioners argument as fallacy, that the separate but equal laws of the States stamped the colored race with a badge of inferiority. If that be so, it is not by reason of anything found in the act (of discrimination), but solely because the colored race chooses to put that construction upon it (themselves). Not only did Africans have no complaint about colored only accommodations provided for them in white only establishments, they had no complaint of the dsicrimination that made them feel inferior because of it. He outlined that Africans had their own establishments that did not provide accommodations for whites, and that by law was discriminatory because it forced whites to share the same accommodations of coloreds. Therefore, there was no merit to the peitioners claim. He concluded that there was no violations of the 14th Amendment, contending that the law separated the races as a matter of public policy. Again, as in the Civil Rights case, Justice John M. Harlan was the lone dissenter on the Court, calling Browns opinion the worse than anything he had heard since 1883. Harlan asserted that the conductor of the railroad was a public person who served the public, and the railroad was a public accommodation which operated in interstate and intrastate transport. They function and are regulated by States who are entities under Constitutional authority. Every citizen in the United States are responsible for one another. Though everyone should feel pride in their race, he/she should feel affected as equals when anothers privileges and rights are violated in the protection of everyones rights. The 13th Amendment is significant, but the failure to adhere to it caused the 14th and 15th Amendments to be drafted. Saying that these amendments dont matter was an abridgement of freedom itself. The amendments clarify that the law in every State should be the same for Africans as it is for whites, that all people, whether African or white, shall stand equal to one another. It is not a matter of ones feeling inferior, but a matter of discriminatory treatment in institutions and society, in the inability of free enjoyment of all rights that reduces a people to an inferior class, to the condition of a subject race. Harlan said that the court was wrong in stating that the peaceful co-existence of the races can not be met. State enactment regulating discriminatory legislation is cunningly devised to defeat legitimate results under the pretense of recognizing equal rights while rendering peace impossible aand keeping alive a conflict of the races. Slavery as an institution tolerated by law would, it is true, have disappeared from our country, but there would remain a power in the States, by sinister legislation, to interfere with the full enjoyment of the blessings of freedom. . . such a system is inconsistent with the guarantee given by the Constitution. The Plessy ruling by the Supreme Court would continue unbroken 108 more years of oppression, invasion, persecution, criminalization, and mass re-enslavement of Africans in America.
Posted on: Wed, 29 Jan 2014 04:52:18 +0000
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