eparate car act did in no way violate the 13th or 14th amendment. Thus it upheld the lower courts ruling that African Americans could be segregated if the facilities were equal to that of the whites. The courts decision became known as the separate but equal doctrine. After the case, the doctrine was extended to cover all facets of public facilities from restaurants to schools. The decision paved the way for the infamous Jim Crow laws that plagued African Americans living in the south.Justice John Harlan held the one dissenting vote. Harlan, argued that, “The thin disguise of equal accommodations . . . will not mislead anyone.” He warned that it would become the source of much agitation and aggression. In the future Harlan’s warnings would become a reality.The next Supreme Court case of great importance in dealing with issues of civil equality came in 1954 with the case of Brown v. The Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. The case began when the Topeka Board of Education refused to allow a black girl named Linda Brown to be enrolled in a white school. The reason her father wished to enroll her was that the black school was over a mile away and involved her having to cross a railroad switchyard on her way to school. The school for white children was only seven blocks away. After being denied, Brown’s father went to the local chapter of the NAACP and with their help promptly filed a suit.It took the court three years to come up with a ruling. At first the court tried to reach a decision on whether the 14th Amendment had desegregated schools in mind. But by the time court made its ruling, the focus had been shifted to whether segregated school gave the same rights and privileges to black children as it did to their white counterparts. In May 1954 Chief Justice Earl Warren delivered the courts decision. In a unanimous ruling it declared that, “in the field of public education, the doctrine of ...
