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SEPARATE AND UNEQUAL: Homer Plessy And The Supreme Court Decision That Legalized Racism. Introduction By Marc H. Morial, Former Mayor Of New Orleans, President Of The National Urban League.
[Buy it!] | Fireside, Harvey | USD 26.00
(Sun May 26 16:27:06 2024) | Abebooks | Chris Fessler, Bookseller | ISBN10: 0786712937, ISBN13: 9780786712939, [publisher: NY. 2004. Carroll & Graf.] Hardcover First Edition black & blue hardbound 8vo. dustwrapper in protective plastic. fine cond. binding square & tight. covers clean. edges clean. contents free of all markings. dustwrapper in fine cond. not worn or torn or price clipped. first edition so stated. first printing (nap). xx+396p. glossy 17 b&w photo illustrations. 2 appendices. biblio. notes. index. american history. politics. african american history. reconstruction. jim crow laws. segregations. american civil rights movement. american supreme court. ~On June 7, 1892, Homer A. Plessy, a light~skinned New Orleans shoemaker of African lineage, boarded a "Whites Only" railroad coach. Rather than concealing his Negro heritage, he volunteered it to the conductor, who ordered him to move to the 'Jim Crow" car set aside by state law for Negroes. He refused, was quickly arrested, and charged with violating Louisiana law. As chronicled by acclaimed civil rights historian Harvey Fireside, Plessy's defiance led to one of the most pivotal civil rights cases in American history, and one of the Supreme Court's most tragic decisions. Professor Fireside uncovers many surprising details of the case, which began amid the remarkable Black Creole community that flourished in New Orleans even after Louisiana was purchased in 1804. Well~educated and prosperous, in the 1890s with the promises of Reconstruction unfulfilled, they threw in their lot with freed Negro slaves, when new racist laws relegated both groups to second~class citizenship. Professor Fireside shows that the case began with a simple act of civil disobedience: Plessy hoped that by offering himself up for prosecution, local people of color would be able to raise a forceful challenge to the South's entire system of racial segregation, and scuttle the myth of a "separate but equal" society. Among the "carpetbaggers," demonized in standard history texts as corrupt and greedy Northern agents, Fireseide reveals there were true idealists like Albion W. Tourgee, who argued Plessys case without fee to the Supreme Court of the United States. Seven justices there approved segregation laws as part of the folkways enshrined in Southern life. Only Justice John Marshall Harlan, a former slave owner, in a memorable dissent, punctured the hypocrisy behind a law claiming to provide "separate but equal" accommodations, which were in fact inferior and racist. After years of baseless constitutional interpretations denying Negroes civil rights under the Fourteenth Amendment, the Warren Court overturned Plessy in 1954, although it took another decade to begin enforcement of desegregation in the South. Separate and Unequal argues that despite tangible benefits to African Americans in the wake of Brown v. Board of Education, America still faces a resurgence of racial divisions~a reversal of progress in education, economic opportunity, and the distribution of social rights.
[Howell, MI, U.S.A.] [Publication Year: 2003] |
