Case 3: Plessy v. Ferguson

Homer A. Plessy

The debate over slavery exploded into all-out civil war in 1861. Over the next four gruesome years, more than 600,000 lives would be lost before the North won the argument decisively over the South. To reify that victory into the concrete language of the law, anti-slavery leaders in Washington drafted the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments, aka the Reconstruction Amendments, and the states ratified them, they hoped, to put a final period on the end of the sentence.

But that was hardly the last word.

READ this brief entry from the History Channel about so-called "Black Codes" to understand the context in which the Supreme Court heard arguments in Plessy v. Ferguson: Black Codes

READ about the background of the case and the Supreme Court's ruling in this Wikipedia entry: Plessy overview article

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