History of the United States II / Unit 5 USH2 0623 short lesson, about 20 seconds
Plessy v. Ferguson
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The idea
In Plessy versus Ferguson, decided May eighteenth, eighteen ninety-six, the Supreme Court upheld Louisiana's law requiring separate railway carriages for Black and White passengers.
In practice
The law's own phrase, equal but separate accommodations, becoming the doctrine of separate but equal.
Where people slip
Justice John Marshall Harlan dissented. The ruling gave legal sanction to segregation until the Brown decision of unit thirteen.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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