ens are equal before the law...In my opinion, the judgment this day rendered will, in time, prove to be quite as pernicious as the decision made by this tribunal in the Dred Scott case...(Cozzens).
             The "separate but equal" doctrine was quickly extended to cover many areas of public life, such as: restaurants, theaters, restrooms, and public schools. For sixty-four more years the decision of Plessy v. Ferguson set a powerful precedent and provided a strong basis for other judicial decisions that upheld segregation laws. Finally, in 1954, the United States Supreme Court struck down the "separate but equal" doctrine in the case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (Cozzens). The question stands: why did the Supreme Court reverse its outlook after sixty-four years?
             After the Civil War ended in 1865, the south was in chaos both economically and politically. The Reconstruction era that followed was a time of turmoil between the Radical Republicans and President Andrew Johnson. Both sides wanted to be able to deal with the South as they saw fit. The most complicated, and argued, issue of that time was what to do with the recently freed African Americans. Three amendments were soon added to the constitution, giving the slaves freedom, citizenship, the Bill of Rights and, for men, the right to vote.
             Eventually, by the nineteenth century white political control had returned to the South. The Jim Crow laws segregated virtually every public place in the South. The uprising of the Ku Klux Klan, a secrete organization of whites who are against colored people, had most southern African Americans living in constant fear. Furthermore, by the late 1800s most people, living in the North or West, stopped paying as much attention to the ongoing problems that southern blacks faced.
             Southern blacks began to steadily move to the bigger cities in the North, and by 1920 a million and a half African Americans resided in northe...