Separate Car Act Case Study

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Louisiana introduced the Separate Car Act in 1890, a law that made the railroad companies have separate rail cars for whites and blacks. The punishment for siting in the wrong car was a twenty-five-dollar fine or 20 days in jail. This law would go to the courts when Homer Plessy bought a ticket and sat in a white car and was arrested. Plessy took his case to two lower courts in Louisiana, arguing that the law was unconstitutional. The low courts ruled that the law was constitutional, and Plessy appealed the case to the supreme court. The supreme court agreed with the two lower courts and the law remained in place . The way newspapers covered the story differed from south to north, with northern newspapers being more neutral and southern