The way that people viewed the issue of segregation in public schools changed over time. The change with regard to segregation in public schools and the need for Plessy v. Ferguson to be overturned became more clear and concrete over time. You can trace this change through three documents, the Harlan dissent to Plessy (1896), Petitioner’s Brief to Sweatt v. Painter (1950), and Appellants’ Brief and Appendix to Brown v. Board of Education (1952). Although these three documents come from different times and cases, they all have one important thing in common, they agree that the Plessy decision not only needs to be change, but someday will be changed. You can tell that as time goes on, the need and desire to have the Plessy decision gets stronger, and the evidence to do so also becomes stronger and more compelling.
The Harlan dissent to Plessy comes right after the Plessy decision is made. Justice Harlan wrote the Harlan dissent. Harlan believed that the Constitution is “color blind”. He believed that civil rights should be and are common to all citizens. He argued that everyone is equal in the eyes of the law, and the law has no right to decide that a certain group should have more or less civil rights than another. Harlan believed that just after the Plessy decision was made that it would later be overturned. He said, “The destinies of the two races, in this country, are indissolubly linked together” . Harlan knew that eventually the two races would be seen as equal and always should be; we are all going to end up in the same place in the end. Harlan also knew that laws, such as Jim Crow laws, were not made to make things separate, but to discriminate against African Americans, and to give them a badge of inferiority. Laws were just made to discriminate against African Americans, and Harlan knew that “in view of the Constitution, in the eye of the law, there is in this country no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens.” In the end, he truly believed that all people would be seen as equal under the law, he just was not sure how or when.
The Petitioner’s Brief to Sweatt v. Painter came fifty-four years later, but still had the same underlying feeling that the Plessy decision needed to be overturned. This document also states that laws and practices were made just to make African Americans inferior, “The purpose of this practice is to exclude Negroes from the recognized state and educational institutions.” This document takes much closer to the decision in Brown because it starts the focus on education. Although this document discusses universities and graduate schools, it is still taking us closer to the decision to integrate all public schools. It also takes us to one of the main arguments in the Brown case, the fact that segregation can never be truly equal for abstract reasons such as prestige of a specific school and the badge of inferiority that African American students receive by being segregated. Another problem that comes to the surface is that “the Negro institutions are vastly inferior to the whites.” The only way to truly make everything equal is to desegregate. This document emphasizes the need for Plessy to be overturned. It begins to chip away at the validity of the decision, something we see in the next document.
The Appellants’ Brief and Appendix to Brown v. Board of Education was written only two years after the previous document, yet the evidence in this document is much more concrete. The document was something that was actually used to help overturn the Plessy decision. The document shows the court what segregation does to children to make them feel inferior, especially when the law approves the segregation. “Segregation with the sanction of law, therefore, has a tendency to retard the educational and mental development of Negro children and to deprive them of some of the benefites they would receive in a racially integrated school system.” The document brings evidence to show how segregation negatively effects the development of children. We also see the continuing theme throughout these documents, that segregation gives children a badge of inferiority. The document basically says that, if the Plessy decision were to be overturned, then African Americans would be given an equal right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
You can see an evolution throughout these documents that shows us how we get to the Brown decision. We start with just knowing that Plessy is wrong, then going to Plessy is wrong and we are going to do something about it, and lastly to this is why you should overturn the Plessy decision. Segregation infringes upon Thirteenth Amendment rights and Fourteenth Amendment rights. It says in the constitution that “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” We can see using the proof given in these documents, that segregation violates what is written in the Constitution. These three documents show the stepping-stones that we used to get to the Brown decision.

Registered Members, login
Join now, it's free

Property of EssaySwap.com