Why did the Supreme Court reverse its ruling in PLESSY v. FERGUSON?
In 1896, the Supreme Court ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson that racial segregation did not violate the 14th Amendment. In 1954, in Brown v. Board of Education, it reversed trend. My question is, why? What made the Justices reverse a half-century-old precedent? One reason I can come up with is the ideologiucal hyprocisy of fighting fascism half a world away while suppressing our own people at home. African-Americans played an instrumental role in WWII (the Tuskegee Airmen, for example), so it was particularly wrong for them to find injustice half a world away and to come back home to see more of it. Maybe that’s why, or maybe that’s at least PART of the reason. Let me know if you can come up with another, or better, one. Thanks a lot.
