Progressive Reform Unit: Progressive Era, Topic: Social Changes

Objective/Learning Target TEKS- (21) Government. The student understands

(A) Analyze the effects of landmark U.S. Supreme Court decisions, including Brown v Board of Education and other U.S. Supreme Court decisions such as Plessy v. Ferguson, Hernandez v. Texas, Tinker v. Des Moines, Wisconsin v Yoder, and White v Register

the impact of constitutional issues on American society in the 20th century. The student is expected to:

Materials Needed- Power Point on Timeline of Civil Rights Plessy v Ferguson Reading – class set Blank Sheet of Paper for each student Teaching Strategy-

1. Explain to students that the foundation for the 1960’s civil rights movement stems from time period and that today’s lesson will focus on the African American civil rights movement.

2. Direct teach the “timeline” of Civil Rights using the attached Power Point. Instruct students to take notes. On slide 5 you will stop and have students complete the cartoon strip activity on Plessy v Ferguson.

3. Provide each student with a blank sheet of paper and the Plessy court case reading. Instruct students to fold their paper into six equal parts - slide 6 has the different parts of the “cartoon strip”. Instruct students to read the case summary and create their cartoon. They should summarize the different parts of the case using bullet points and drawings in each square of the cartoon. Note: The first square with the citation only needs to have the name of the case and the year.

4. After students have completed their cartoon, continue with the class notes. The end of the Power Point references an activity on Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois that would be a good extension activity.

Extension Activity – 1. Post the statements from Washington and DuBois around the room as a gallery walk.

2. Instruct students to pair up with a partner and evaluate each of the statements based on who they think would have made that statement. Have them make a T chart in their notes and record the station number under the correct heading. You may want them to summarize each statement.

3. Discuss the correct responses (see slide with answers) with students and have them

summarize the differences between the two men in their notes. Note: They may need access to the stations again to create their summary.

Formative Assessment- Cartoon Strip T chart in notes Summative Assessment-

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CARTOON CASE STUDY STRIP

CIT

ATIO

N

FACTS

ISSU

E

PETITIO

NER’S

ARG

UM

EN

TS

RESPONDENT’S

ARG

UM

EN

TS

DECIS

ION

& R

EASO

N

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Plessy v Ferguson 163 U. S. 527 (1896)

In1890 the Louisiana Legislature passed the Separate Car Act which required railroads “to provide equal but separate accommodations for the white and colored races” in order to protect the safety and comfort of all passengers. In 1891, in New Orleans a group of African American and Creole doctors, lawyers, and businessmen formed the “Citizens Committee to Test the Constitutionality of the Separate Car Law.” The committee chose Homer Plessy, who was one-eighth black, to test the law by violating it. On June 7, 1892, he bought a first-class ticket on the East Louisiana Railway that traveled from New Orleans to Covington, Louisiana. He boarded the train, walked past the coach clearly marked “For Coloreds Only,” and took a seat in the coach clearly marked “For Whites Only.” He informed the conductor of his racial background. When the train conductor asked Plessy to move to the other coach, he refused and was arrested. He was charged with violation of the Separate Car Law, tried in a Criminal District Court for the Parish of Orleans, found guilty, and sentenced to jail. He appealed his conviction to the Louisiana Supreme Court which upheld the law and Plessy‟s conviction. Plessy and his lawyers then appealed to the U. S. Supreme Court.

Issue: Does a state law which requires “equal but separate” railway accommodations for African Americans and whites violate either the Thirteenth Amendment’s prohibition of slavery or the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection of the laws clause?

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Plessy v Ferguson Decision

By a 7-1 vote with one Justice not participating, the Supreme Court upheld the Louisiana law and thus Homer Plessy‟s conviction for having violated it. Justice Henry Brown wrote the opinion of the Court. Brown first addresses the question of whether the Separate Car Act violated the Thirteenth Amendment and dismisses it very quickly: “A statute which implies merely a legal distinction between the white and colored races – a distinction which is founded in the color of the two races and which must always exist so long as white men are distinguished from the other race by color – has no tendency to destroy the legal equality of the two races, or reestablish a state of involuntary servitude.” Brown then turns to the question of whether the Louisiana law violated the equal protection of the laws guarantee of the Fourteenth Amendment. He writes: “The object was undoubtedly to enforce the absolute equality of the two races before the law, but, in the nature of things, it could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color, or to enforce social, as distinguished from political, equality, or a commingling of the two races upon terms unsatisfactory to either. Laws permitting, and even requiring, their separation in places where they are liable to be brought into contact do not necessarily imply the inferiority of either race to the other …” Brown concludes with these remarks: “We consider the underlying fallacy of the plaintiff‟s argument to consist in the assumption that the enforced separation of the two races stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority. If this be so, it is not by reason of anything found in the act, but solely because the colored race chooses to put that construction upon it. … The argument also assumes that … equal rights cannot be secured to the Negro except by an enforced commingling of the two races. We cannot accept this proposition. If the two races are to meet upon terms of social equality, it must be the result of natural affinities, a mutual appreciation of each other‟s merits, and a voluntary consent of individuals.” Justice John Marshall Harlan I dissented alone in one of his most famous opinions: “In respect of civil rights, common to all citizens, the Constitution of the United States does not, I think, permit any public authority to know the race of those entitled to be protected in the enjoyment of such rights. … Everyone knows that the statute in question had its origin in the purpose not so much to exclude white persons from railroad cars occupied by blacks as to exclude colored people from coaches occupied by or assigned to white persons. …” Harlan concludes with some of the most famous remarks ever written by any member of the nation‟s highest Court: “In view of the Constitution, in the eye of the law, there is in this country no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens. There is no caste here. Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law. The humblest is the peer of the most powerful. The law regards man as man, and takes no account of his surroundings or of his color when his civil rights as guaranteed by the supreme law of the land are involved. … The thin disguise of „equal‟ accommodations for passengers in railroad coaches will not mislead anyone, nor atone for the wrong this day done.”

Station One

“ Our greatest danger is that, in the great leap from slavery to freedom, we may

overlook the fact that the masses of us are to live by the productions of our hands

and fail to keep in mind that he shall prosper in proportion as we learn to

glorify common labor.”

Station Two

“By every civilized and peaceful method we must strive for the rights which the

world accords to men.”

Station 3

“ Disenfranchisement (taking away the right to vote) is the deliberate theft and robbery of the only protection of poor against rich and black against white.”

Station Four

“No race can prosper until it learns that

there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem. It is at the bottom of life

we must begin, and not at the top.”

Station Five

“Cannot the nation that has absorbed ten million foreigners into its political life

without catastrophe absorb ten million Negro Americans into that same political life at less cost than their unjust and illegal

exclusion will involve?”

Station Six

“In all things social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all

things essential to mutual progress.”

Station Seven

“The problem of the Twentieth century is the problem of the color line.”

Station Eight

“The opportunity to earn a dollar in a factory just now is worth infinitely more

than the opportunity to spend a dollar in an opera house.”

Station Nine

“Negroes must insist continually in season and out of season, that voting is necessary

to modern manhood, that color discrimination is barbarism and that black boys need an education as well as white

boys.”

Station Ten

“Cast down your bucket where you are. Cast it down in agriculture, mechanics, commerce and in domestic service.”

KEY 1. “ Our greatest danger is that, in the great leap from slavery to freedom, we may

overlook the fact that the masses of us are to live by the productions of our hands and fail to keep in mind that he shall prosper in proportion as we learn to glorify common labor.” Washington

2. “By every civilized and peaceful method we must strive for the rights which the

world accords to men.” DuBois 3. Disenfranchisement (taking away the right to vote) is the deliberate theft and

robbery of the only protection of poor against rich and black against white.” DuBois 4. “No race can prosper until it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in

writing a poem. It is at the bottom of life we must begin, and not at the top.” Washington

5. “Cannot the nation that has absorbed ten million foreigners into its political life

without catastrophe absorb ten million Negro Americans into that same political life at less cost than their unjust and illegal exclusion will involve?” DuBois

6. “In all things social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all

things essential to mutual progress.” Washington

7. “The problem of the Twentieth century is the problem of the color line.” DuBois 8. “The opportunity to earn a dollar in a factory just now is worth infinitely more than

the opportunity to spend a dollar in an opera house.” Washington

9. “Negroes must insist continually in season and out of season, that voting is necessary to modern manhood, that color discrimination is barbarism and that black boys need an education as well as white boys.” DuBois

10. “Cast down your bucket where you are. Cast it down in agriculture, mechanics,

commerce and in domestic service.” Washington