According to the ruling in the Plessy v. Ferguson case, why was segregation acceptable?
A:Segregation was legal because African Americans were not citizens (hate this answer)
B: segregation was legal as long as the facilities for blacks and whites were equal
C: segregation was acceptable in private facilities only
Segregation was acceptable on a state by state basis
B: segregation was legal as long as the facilities for blacks and whites were equal
The correct answer is B: segregation was legal as long as the facilities for blacks and whites were equal.
To arrive at this answer, we can examine the ruling in the Plessy v. Ferguson case. The case was decided by the United States Supreme Court in 1896. Homer Plessy, who was an African American man, was arrested for refusing to leave a whites-only train car in Louisiana. Plessy argued that his rights were violated under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
In its ruling, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation under the "separate but equal" doctrine. The Court reasoned that as long as the facilities provided to both white and black citizens were equal, segregation did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment. This ruling effectively legalized segregation in the United States, allowing for separate facilities and accommodations for different racial groups, as long as they were supposedly equal in quality.
It is important to note that this ruling has since been overturned by the Supreme Court in the Brown v. Board of Education case in 1954. The Court declared that segregation in public schools was inherently unequal and violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The correct answer is:
B: segregation was legal as long as the facilities for blacks and whites were equal.
In the Plessy v. Ferguson case, the Supreme Court ruled that "separate but equal" facilities were constitutional. This meant that segregation was legally acceptable as long as the facilities provided for African Americans were equal in quality to those provided for white Americans. This ruling was later overturned by the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case in 1954.