In 1986, the Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court case established that there could be separate but
equal facilities for blacks and whites, giving support to Jim Crow laws. The Supreme Court did
not begin to reverse Plessy until the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court case 58 years
later, which established that segregating blacks and whites was unconstitutional and that separate
could never be equal.
After the period of reconstruction following the Civil War, many states in the south and
other regions of the country passed laws that discriminated against African-Americans. These
laws r…
