Supreme court cases

• Civil rights cases 1883 - description - 5 civil rights cases reviewed by Supreme Court in which black Americans sued transportation companies, hotels and theatres that had refused them. Court ruled that the provisions in 1875 legislation along with federal government intervention over radical discrimination on the part of private individuals and organisations as UNCONSTITUTIONAL. It declared that 'freed slaves were no longer to be a special favourite of the law'. It removed the protection that was in place.
• Civil rights cases 1883 - significance - open to discrimination ; contributed to loss of civil rights ; the ruling encouraged the states of the South in the systematic imposition of Jim Crow Laws that legitimased de jure segregation. It opened new opportunities for whites to discriminate black Americans - it made it legal and promoted inequality.
• Plessy v Ferguson 1896 - description - it ruled that 'separate but equal' facilities for blacks and whites on public transportation did not contravene the 14th amendment. Court asserted that 'legislation is powerless to eradicate racial instincts'. Racial segregation laws did not violate the U.S. Constitution so long as the facilities for each race were deemed to be equal in quality, a doctrine which came to be known as separate but equal.
• Plessy v Ferguson 1896 - significance - provision were 'separate but equal' in the South, they were never 'equal' and the supreme court did not seek to ensure that they were. Facilities = not equal.
• Williams v Mississippi 1898 - significance - A black defendant challenged his indictment for murder on the ground that Mississippi unconstitutionally excluded black Americans from grand juries. Supreme court ruled that the 1890 Mississippi state constitution was not discriminatory when it required voters to pass a literacy test and to pay the poll tax.
• Williams v Mississippi 1898 - significance - Supreme court did not initiate or even promote discrimination against black Americans, rather the rulings played a confirmatory role. It was legal - discrimination continued.
• Cummings vs Board of Education 1899 - description - Cumming and other black litigants objected to the fact that a Georgia county had continued to fund a white high school but stopped funding a black one. It argued that it's better to concentrate the limited funds available for black education, Supreme court unanimously rejected it.
• Cummings v Board of education 1899 - significance - limited opportunities open to black Americans - school segregation. Its an example of court sanctioned de jure racial segregation in American schools.