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In 1896 racial segregation in the American South was upheld by a decision of the United States Supreme Court. This landmark decision, Plessy v. Ferguson, arose when a railroad company refused to provide a sleeping car berth to a black train passenger. The Supreme Court ruled the railroad could segregate white sleeping car passengers from black sleeping car passengers, but the railroad had to provide sleeping accommodations for blacks that were equal to similar accommodations for whites. This decision promulgated for the first time the famous "separate but equal" doctrine. That doctrine was used extensively by southern states to justify racially segregated public schools, from kindergarten to graduate school, throughout all of Dixie.
Plessy v. Ferguson did produce a stirring dissenting opinion. In a lone voice strongly opposed to the majority opinion, Justice John Marshall Harlan wrote: "Our Constitutionis colorblind and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens.". |
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