Name Chadd Rice ACTIVITY 11 Document-Based Essay Part A Class 3 Date Document-Based Questions The Civil Rights Movement DIRECTIONS Analyze the following documents. Use the documents and your knowledge of American history to answer the questions that follow each document. Your answers will help you to write a short essay related to the documents. Document 1 Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896) 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. -Justice Henry Brown, writing for the majority (I)n 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 guarantied by the supreme law of the land are involved.... In my opinion, the judgment this day rendered will, in time, prove to be quite as pernicious (very bad) as the decision made by this tribunal in the Dred Scott Case. -Justice John Marshall Harlan, writing in dissent 1a. Why does the majority opinion maintain that the "Jim Crow law" that forbade Homer Plessy from riding in a "whites only" rail car is constitutional? 1b. According to Harlan, Plessy v. Ferguson would someday be viewed as a bad decision on the part of the Supreme Court. Was he correct? Explain your answer. yes because even the whites and blacks were seperate but treated equally. Copyright by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. All rights reserved. equal the blacks were not

Name Chadd Rice ACTIVITY 11 Document-Based Essay Part A Class 3 Date Document-Based Questions The Civil Rights Movement DIRECTIONS Analyze the following documents. Use the documents and your knowledge of American history to answer the questions that follow each document. Your answers will help you to write a short essay related to the documents. Document 1 Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896) 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. -Justice Henry Brown, writing for the majority (I)n 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 guarantied by the supreme law of the land are involved.... In my opinion, the judgment this day rendered will, in time, prove to be quite as pernicious (very bad) as the decision made by this tribunal in the Dred Scott Case. -Justice John Marshall Harlan, writing in dissent 1a. Why does the majority opinion maintain that the "Jim Crow law" that forbade Homer Plessy from riding in a "whites only" rail car is constitutional? 1b. According to Harlan, Plessy v. Ferguson would someday be viewed as a bad decision on the part of the Supreme Court. Was he correct? Explain your answer. yes because even the whites and blacks were seperate but treated equally. Copyright by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. All rights reserved. equal the blacks were not