Dred Scott, Plessy V. Ferguson, And Loving Vs. Virginia

Sukhsharn Kaur Johal Phil 4401 Dr. Nagel 28 August 2015 Loving v. Virginia This situation creates concern in that it brings up questions about how this case was handled by the State of Virginia and the Supreme Court of Appeals. Were Virginia anti-miscegenation laws constitutional?

​In the case of Loving v. Virginia (1967), an interracial couple by the name of Richard Loving, a Caucasian man, and Mildred Loving, an African American woman, moved to Washington D.C. because of Virginia’s Racial Integrity Act of 1924 that banned whites and blacks from marrying. They both grew up in Virginia which was one of the many states that banned interracial marriages. After a few years of being married, the Loving’s returned back to Virginia to shortly be arrested for violating the miscegenation law. The law prohibited black and white couples from marrying out of state and then returning back to Virginia. Richard and Mildred were both charged and guilty of the crime that sentenced them to a year in jail.

This case had to deal with the rights of the enslaved individuals in Missouri at the time. Dred Scott and his owner moved to Illinois. The reason why this case came to be was because in the state of Illinois, slavery was made illegal. After, moving to this state Dred then refusal to move back to Missouri where enslavement was allowed. The reason for Scott refused to move because now that he is in Illinois where enslavement was banned, he believes that he was a free man.

To understand the question, focusing on the court cases of Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Board of Education, we must first understand each court case on its own. Plessy v. Ferguson resulted in the year 1896. The case involved the 1890s Louisiana law that basically stated that there were separate railway carriages that were specifically labeled for blacks only and whites only. Plessy v. Ferguson involved Homer Plessy, who was seven-eighths white and one-eighth black and appeared to look like a white man. Plessy took an open seat in a white only railway car.

Virginia. This landmark civil rights decision of the United States Supreme Court used the fourteenth Amendment to negate the previous laws forbidding interracial marriages. Mildred and Richard Loving pleaded guilty at a hearing in a Virginia state court in 1959, for disobeying Section 20-58 of the Virginia state code, which made it illegal for a “white” person and a “colored” person to return as man and wife after leaving the state to be married. The determined punishment, for violation of said law, was imprisonment in the state penitentiary for one to five years. The Lovings were sentenced to one year in jail, although it was suspended on the condition that the couple leave the state immediately and not return for 25 years.

Based on the supreme court, like the country itself, they were was split along sectional lines. One justice maintained that the matter belonged back in the state courts. Justices argued that Scott should be freed under the terms of the Missouri Compromise, but Conservative justices wanted to deny freedom to Scott and rule the Compromise unconstitutional. There were many important steps in the case. In the end the Court was unable to reach a single decision, but the positions taken by the Chief Justice, a former slave owner, prevailed in the end.

In 1985, a couple was arrested and when given the chance to leave they decided to get married in washington dc, where it was legal. The wife decided she should fight for her rights to be married in her home state and sought help of an activist Kennedy. After many years, the court decided that the Virginia law violated the 14th amendment because they did not allow the lovings, and many interracial couples to be together. It was then decided that all people had the right to marry and love whomever they want. While many Supreme Court cases have had important lasting impacts in the United States , the Loving V Virginia court case was the most impactful landmark supreme court case because the supreme court made all anti-miscegenation laws unconstitutional.

America’s founders created the constitution in order to create unification and order in the United States. However, there have been controversy surrounding the interpretation of the constitution, this has caused debate over many issues within the country. These issues and the lack of wartime policy within the constitution directly lead to the Civil War, which was one of the worst alterations this nation has faced. The Missouri compromise, the Dred Scott decision, and Bleeding Kansas were controversial issues surrounding the constitution that directly lead to the Civil War.

For nearly a century, the United States was occupied by the racial segregation of black and white people. The constitutionality of this “separation of humans into racial or other ethnic groups in daily life” had not been decided until a deliberate provocation to the law was made. The goal of this test was to have a mulatto, someone of mixed blood, defy the segregated train car law and raise a dispute on the fairness of being categorized as colored or not. This test went down in history as Plessy v. Ferguson, a planned challenge to the law during a period ruled by Jim Crow laws and the idea of “separate but equal” without equality for African Americans. This challenge forced the Supreme Court to rule on the constitutionality of segregation, and in result of the case, caused the nation to have split opinions of support and

Their civil rights case, Loving versus Virginia, went to the Supreme Court, and it ultimately marked a monumental time in American history. For the first time, laws prohibiting interracial marriage were struck down. Richard and Mildred initially pleaded guilty. The judge ruled one year in jail as well as banishment

he Dred Scott decision of 1857 was a significant decision made by the U.S. Supreme Court that declared that blacks, regardless of whether they were free or a slave, had no legal standing because they were not American citizens. The decision was not the first to be made regarding Dred Scott; a Missouri jury ruled in Scott 's favour when Scott claimed that his residence in Illinois and Wisconsin made him free, but the state supreme court ruled against him, which lead to the case being escalated to the US Supreme Court. The US Supreme Court ruled against Scott 7-2. The Dred Scott decision is considered a landmark decision and is indicative of the tumultuous political climate of the time.

Arguably the most significant civil rights activist in American history, led the boycott to victory. Consequently, the U.S. Supreme Court declared racial segregation for public transportation as unconstitutional. Here by, "***INSERT LAW -QUOTED**** BROWDER VS GALE 1956

In the stories of Loving V. Virginia and “ Desiree’s baby ” both take place back in the day when racism was prevalent. The United States Supreme Court invalidated laws prohibiting interracial marriage. Although one of them is a fictional story while for the other one is an article on a real case that happened. After a close reading of Loving V. Virginia and the fictional story Desiree 's Baby by Kate Cho both couples react to interracial marriage in a way that demonstrates race relations don’t allow them to be happy and they believe they are as equal as anybody else and deserve to live how they choose to live. Loving V. Virginia took place in 1967 back then normal couples were considered as two people of the same race.

Rabina Mainali Sign 111 Dr. Dulan 3 November, 2015 Witnesses of the Scottsboro trials The Scottsboro trials came about during the year 1931 when Great Depression had hit the South hard. In search of work several individuals boarded a freight train from Chattanooga to Memphis, Tennessee not knowing their future ahead wasn’t so bright. While in the train a white man stepped on a black man’s hand, later identified as belonging to Haywood Patterson. A fight between the white youths and Patterson’s

It was a 7 to 1 decision. The decision was that separate but equal was legal as long as no discrimination was shown. They believed that "so long as separate facilities were actually qualitatively equal, the constitution did not prohibit segregation in the view of the majority of the court," as stated in the second