On January 31, 1865, the 13th Amendment was passed abolishing slavery in the United States. Even though slavery was abolished, this did not end discrimination for African Americans. States continued to develop laws that made it harder for African Americans to be equal. In 1896, a man named Homer Plessy decided to put one of those laws to the test. Plessy was a Creole. This meant that he was not fully African American or fully white, yet in the eyes of the law he was considered African American. On June 7, 1892, Plessy decided to sit in a whites-only train car. After he was told to move without obedience, as he expected, he was arrested and sent to prison. In Homer A. Plessy v. John H. Ferguson, 163.US 537 (1896) the judge ruled that forcing him to move to a different train car did not violate his constitutional rights. Plessy intervened by taking his case to the Supreme Court. In a 1-7 decision the court ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment permitted separate facilities for different contests as long as those facilities were equal. The case Plessy v. Ferguson impacted the lives of many Americans in myriad ways, including strengthening segregation in schools and public places with Jim Crow laws, literacy tests that prevented African American citizens from voting and being ineligible to serve on a jury, and a The grandfather clause was also created to further separate the African American community. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Before the Plessy v. Ferguson, the idea of ​​Jim Crow laws was born, "Jim Crow" refers to a slang term given to an African American man. The Jim Crow laws were the previous set of laws that enforced racial segregation in the Southern United States. Jim Crow laws were enacted by white supremacists who believed that whites were superior to African Americans in every way. Initially, larger cities did not fully comply with Jim Crow laws, which led to an influx of African Americans into these cities where they could find greater freedom from these laws. There was no real documentation or legislation to support these laws until after the ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson. After the case was resolved, Jim Crow laws began to be formalized. The establishment of these laws continued to further segregate the United States. Jim Crow laws heavily affected the African American way of life across the country, preventing African Americans from entering public parks, theaters, and restaurants due to segregation. Everything had to have separate waiting rooms inside train stations, fountains and elevators. Laws were created to prohibit African Americans from living in all-white neighborhoods. Jim Crow laws enforced segregation in schools, and white and African American students were assigned different textbooks in some states. Not only did Jim Crow laws enforce segregation in public places, they also implemented literacy tests. After the Plessy v. Ferguson, literacy tests were implemented to prevent African Americans from voting, serving on a jury, and running for office. A literacy test is a test used to evaluate an individual's reading and writing skills. Many U.S. state governments administered literacy tests to disenfranchise African Americans. Literacy tests were first implemented in 1890 to deny rightsto African Americans. Literacy tests would be taken as part of voter registration. In the literacy test the candidates had to write and interpret passages of the Constitution and had to write an essay in which they affirmed the responsibilities of citizenship. Registration officials were allowed to determine which candidates passed or failed the exam. If the test failed, the citizen would be denied the right to vote. If they did, whites could be exempt from literacy tests if they met certain requirements such as the grandfather clause. Another way in which Plessy v. Ferguson expanded segregation in America by implementing the grandfather clauses. To further limit the voting rights of African Americans, white supremists implemented an unfair literacy test and a poll tax that they knew blacks could not afford. They required everyone to take the literacy test and pay the poll tax, however there was one exception, the grandfather clause. An escape clause occurs when certain people or things are exempted from the requirements of a piece of legislation that affects the person's previous rights or privileges. For example, when referring to literacy tests, white Americans were given permission to vote before literacy tests were put in place, and could now be exempt from having to take the literacy test in order to vote. The grandfather clause stated that if a male whose grandfather or father had the right to vote before the Civil War, he would be covered by the clause, and people who did not have the right to vote before the Civil War would be forced to take the literacy. test and pay the poll tax. Nearly all whites could vote through the grandfather clause. Unfortunately, no African American had a father or grandfather who voted before the Civil War because they had just recently granted the right to vote to males of any race. Therefore the grandfather clause only applied to whites, which was the goal of the white supremists who allowed this clause. Overall, the Plessy v. Ferguson impacted the lives of many Americans in myriad ways, including entrenching segregation in schools and public places with Jim Crow laws, literacy tests that prevented African-American citizens from voting and not being eligible to serve on a jury, and a grandfather clause was also created to further separate the African American community. Plessy v. Ferguson was a landmark case that achieved a total of seven votes to one in the judges' ruling against Plessy. The majority opinion was written by Associate Justice Henry Billings Brown who rejected Plessy's arguments that they were violating the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments. . The Thirteenth Amendment prohibits slavery, and the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees equal citizenship rights to African Americans. According to Brown, the Thirteenth Amendment and the Separate Car Act were not in conflict. Brown said they were not in conflict because he did not reestablish slavery or represent slavery in any way. Brown relied on the earlier civil rights cases of 1883. To reach this conclusion, he relied on the Supreme Court's ruling in the Civil Rights Cases (1883), which established that racial discrimination against African Americans in inns, public transportation, and in places of public amusement “ imposes no sign of slavery or involuntary servitude… but, at most, violates the rights which are protected from State aggression by the Fourteenth Amendment. "Remember:.