Civil Rights - FP2 - US Supreme Court Flashcards
1883 Civil Rights Cases: Outline
US v Stanley - Stanley accomadations owner charged with refusing to allow people of color to stay at his inn
US v Nichols - inn
US v Ryan - Ryan refused admission of a black person to the dress circle
US v Singleton - Denied entrace to Opera house
Robinson et Ux v Memphs and Charleston Railroad - Ms Robinson denied entrance to ladies carriage
1883 Civil Rights Cases: Reasoning and decision
Private companies discriminating- right of federal to interfere in private affairs to defend blacks
8-1 against black rights - declared 1875 civil rights act unconstitutional
Management of black American civil rights over to states
Encouragement of racial segregation which was now legal
1883 Civil Rights cases: Black reaction
Public protest across country, ‘indignantion meetings’, Mass meeting in Birmingham, Alabama condemned decision - fruitless
Pace v Alabama 1883 - Black man and white woman arrested because of violation of anti-miscegenation laws - both imprisoned
Significant cases pre the big 3 (Plessy, Williams, Cumming)
Slaughter House Cases 1873 - narrow interpretation of 14th
Cruikshank Case 1876 - equal protection does not apply to actions of individuals
Civil Rights Cases 1883 - 1875 Civil Rights Act unconstitutional
Pace v Alabama 1883 - Interacial couple imprisoned
Plessy v Ferguson 1896
Legal challenge to Louisiana Separate Car Act 1890 - Plessy refuses to leave the first class carriage after buying a ticket
SC upheld decision of Louisiana Court - as long as ‘seperate but equal’ is fine
JC laws extended beyond transportation to schools, colleges, fountains, recreation facilities, prisons
Williams v Mississippi 1898
By 1892 only 8000 blacks remained on voting rolls, 1893 enforcement acts were repealed so white southerners felt free to disenfranchise blacks
Key issue was the introduction of $2 poll tax
Williams contested both his murder charge on the grounds that AA were excluded from the jury, and challenged suffrage qualifications
Decision was that these clauses did not directly indicate discrimination - disenfranchisment recieves ultimate legal sanction
Cumming v Richmond County Board of Education 1899
Provisions in schools were seperate in the South, but never equal eg Southern states spent 10x as much on white schools as black
1887 special committee recommended that for economic reasons the Ware High School be cloased - in addition Richmond County Board of Education levied a tax of $45,000 to support schooling
AA parents objected to the tax and closure of the school, as only white schools were being properly served
Extended seperate but equal principle to education - federal sanction to JC and ignoring Reconstruction legislation
By 1915 per capita spending on white pupils was roughly x3 in N Carolina, x6 in Alabama, x12 in South Carolina
