Just think, from the time slavery was banned in 1865 by the 13th amendment, it only took 31 more years for the Supreme Court to render their decison in Plessy vs. Ferguson. In this case, the Supreme Court upheld a segregation law as constitutional. Cheif Justice Taney wrote the opinion of the Court in which he stated something like, "Negroes are not an equal race to Whites, and therefore the court can not require a state to provide equal facilities."
It only took the Supreme Court 58 more years to reverse that bigoted ruling in the 1954 case of Brown vs. Board of Education. This case was a combining of a series of cases that the Court was to hear on segregation in public schools.
From this case we get the now famous line, "We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of ââ?¬Ë?separate but equalââ?¬â?¢ has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal"
This effectively ended legalized segregation in the U.S.
Pretty sad that it took 89 years after slavery was abolished to end LEGAL segregation, and we still haven't eliminated de facto segregation everywhere in the year 2006.
