U.S. Supreme Court cases define legal terms of 'equality'

Scholars discuss segregation, racial relations

Showing the steps it took for desegregation, the Center for Multicultural/International Student Services presented a Virginia Connection program Monday night in Grafton-Stovall Theatre.

Joanne Gabbin, from the honors department, said the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education (1954) case overturned the "separate vs. equal" policy, which resulted from the decision of the Plessy vs. Ferguson (1892) case.

The separate but equal decision did not provide for equal opportunities and protection under the law for African-American students, Gabbin said.

Jacqueline Walker, history professor, said segregation historically is one of the older instruments of social control. Contrary to popular belief, she said, segregation first began in the North before moving to the South.

Only with the institution of the 13th Amendment Dec. 18, 1865, did the South hasten to institute "black codes" and to control separation.

Then, according to Walker, the Civil Rights Act of 1866 spelled out what citizenship was and meant to U.S. citizens.

The 14th Amendment nearly echoed the Civil Rights Act of 1866, saying that, as a citizen, one is entitled to equal protection and due process under the law, according to Walker.

In the late 1800s, Homer Plessy sued a train company for not giving him first class accommodations, despite his possession of a first-class ticket.

The U.S. Supreme Court said the framers of the 14th Amendment couldn't have meant for social equality and insisted that the races must be separate but equal, Walker said.

Charles Hamilton Huston, a World War I veteran, nearly was lynched by fellow American soldiers while fighting in France, Walker said. When he returned to America, he entered law school and graduated "numero uno" in his class.

He moved to Washington, D.C., to aide William Hastings, dean of the Howard University Law School. According to Walker, he didn't care about making money, but what he wanted to do was "go forth and make revolution."

Professors at the school used their classes to find a way to overthrow or abide by Plessy vs. Ferguson, Walker said. They found a loophole in the "equal" bit of the ruling, and strategized to get everything exactly equal for African-Americans.

Gabbin said the rules were often unclear on what people could do. She said, "Blacks in the South could stand almost anywhere at counters. They could go around the back of restaurants to get food. They could stand in stores to buy things. But, when blacks started to sit down, that's when the trouble began."