Rosa Parks

Born on February 4th, 1913 Rosa Louise McCauley was born to James McCauley and Leona Edwards. In 1939 she married a barber named Raymond Parks changing her name to Rosa Parks. He was a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). After one long day at work, on December 1st 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man while riding on a bus; a violation of the cities racial segregation laws. Parks was then arrested and fined. Thousands of people boycotted riding buses for 381 days. On November 13, 1956, the US Supreme Court ruled that segregation on city buses is unconstitutional. The Montgomery boycott paved the way for the removal of the racist and discriminatory attitude within the United States of America. She changed the course of history and inspired us all. She soon died on October 24th, 2005.

Martin Luther king Jr.

Martin was born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1929. Faith was always an important part of his daily life. As both his father and grandfather were Baptist ministers. He soon became the 20th pastor of the Dexter Ave Baptist church. He married Coretta Scott and short thereafter had 4 children. He has been jailed over 20 times, stabbed in the chest; his house was bombed and he suffered relentless personal attacks on himself and family. For a man of peaceful intentions, he spent much of his life the target of violent and intent yet the threats never stopped him. While in Memphis to lead a protest march defending the rights of striking garbage workers in April of 1968, King delivered a rousing speech titled “I’ve Been to the Mountain Top” it was his last. Standing on the balcony of his second floor room at the Lorraine motel in Memphis, king was shot and killed on April 14, 1968.

Plessy .vs. Ferguson

Plessy attempted to sit in an all-white railroad car. After refusing to sit in the black railway carriage car, Plessy was arrested for violating an 1890 Louisiana statute that provided for segregated “separate but equal” railroad accommodations. Those using facilities not designated for their race were criminally liable under the statute.
At trial with Justice John H. Ferguson presiding, Plessy was found guilty on the grounds that the law was a reasonable exercise of the state’s police powers based upon custom, usage, and tradition in the state. Plessy filed a petition for writs of prohibition and certiorari in the Supreme Court of Louisiana against Ferguson, asserting that segregation stigmatized blacks and stamped them with a badge of inferiority in violation of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth amendments. The court found for Ferguson and the Supreme Court granted cert.

The practice of racial segregation is the separation of people and daily public life. It’s typically associated with the Jim Crow era beginning in the late 1800’s when public facilities like schools, public transportation, restaurants, and drinking fountains were separated for whites and blacks.

In the late 1800’s a serious of measures sot to prevent blacks from voting through pole taxes, literacy tests and residency requirements; virtually eliminating the opportunity for blacks to participate in public life.

In America in the late 19th and early 20th century saw the rise of the Jim Crow era or de jure segregation in the south and the de facto segregation in the north. The difference between the two is the Jim Crow laws mandated the segregation in public places while the de facto segregation was the practice of segregation of the ground of common practice. And the north segregation was not mandated but was still heavily practiced because