Why did Charles Hamilton Houston focus on law and justice?
Houston’s intention was to make it too expensive for facilities to remain separate. His ingenious legal strategy was to end school segregation by unmasking the belief that facilities for Blacks were “separate but equal” for the lie it was. Houston’s shrewd strategy worked, effectively paving the way for desegregation.
What advantages did Charles Houston have over other African Americans at that time?
Houston is also well known for having trained and mentored a generation of black attorneys, including Thurgood Marshall, future founder and director of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the first Black Supreme Court Justice.
What were the effects of their actions Charles Hamilton Houston?
Charles Hamilton Houston, (born September 3, 1895, Washington, D.C., U.S.—died April 22, 1950, Washington, D.C.), American lawyer and educator instrumental in laying the legal groundwork that led to U.S. Supreme Court rulings outlawing racial segregation in public schools.
What weakness in the Jim Crow laws did Houston and his team challenge first?
From 1935 to 1939, Houston served as special counsel for the NAACP and became the architect of the legal challenge to Jim Crow. He felt that the weakest link in the chain of segregation was education, since black and white schools were unquestionably unequal in every Southern state.
What little known lawyer traveled the South filming the difference between Blacks & Whites?
These old scenes were shot by a brilliant but little known black lawyer, Charles Hamilton Houston. In 1934, Houston crisscrossed the South documenting inequalities between schools for whites, and schools for blacks.
Why separate but equal is bad?
Separate-but-equal was not only bad logic, bad history, bad sociology, and bad constitutional law, it was bad. Not because the equal part of separate-but- equal was poorly enforced, but because de jure segregation was immoral. Separate-but-equal, the Court ruled in Brown, is inherently unequal.
How long did separate but equal last?
The Supreme Court Building, in Washington D. C., circa 1940-1965. One of the most infamous Supreme Court decisions in American history was handed down 120 years ago, on May 18, 1896: Plessy v. Ferguson.
What did separate but equal lead to?
One of the most famous cases to emerge from this era was Brown v. Board of Education, the 1954 landmark Supreme Court decision that struck down the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ and ordered an end to school segregation.
What did the case Plessey v Ferguson decide?
On May 18, 1896, the U.S. Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson ruled that separate-but-equal facilities were constitutional. The Plessy v. Ferguson decision upheld the principle of racial segregation over the next half-century.
How was Plessy rights violated?
They enlisted Homer Plessy, a light-skinned African American, to board a railroad train bound for Covington, Louisiana. By an 8–1 vote in Plessy v. Ferguson, the court rejected Plessy’s arguments that the Louisiana Jim Crow law violated his constitutional rights under the 13th and 14th Amendments.
Who won the Plessy vs Ferguson case?
Decision. On May 18, 1896, the Supreme Court issued a 7–1 decision against Plessy that upheld the constitutionality of Louisiana’s train car segregation laws.
Did Brown win the case?
May 17, 1954: In a major civil rights victory, the U.S. Supreme Court hands down an unanimous decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, ruling that racial segregation in public educational facilities is unconstitutional.
Who dissented in Plessy v Ferguson?
Justice John Marshall Harlan