"The white race deems itself to be the dominant race in this country. And so it is, in prestige, in achievements, in education, in wealth, and in power... But in view of the Constitution, in the eye of the law, there is in this country no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens. There is no caste here. Our Constitution is color-blind." — Justice John Marshall Harlan, dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson, 1896
The Plessy decision is best understood as part of which broader late-nineteenth-century pattern?
- A
The federal protection of Black voters under the Force Acts
- B
The expansion of federal authority to enforce the Fifteenth Amendment
- C
The growth of integrated public accommodations in the urban North
- Dcheck_circle
The dismantling of Reconstruction-era civil rights protections
Explanation
Following the Compromise of 1877 and decisions like the Civil Rights Cases (1883), federal courts and Congress retreated from enforcing the Reconstruction Amendments. Plessy capped this retreat by sanctioning state-mandated segregation.