sic civil rights. They are the Fourteenth Amendment of the constitution and the C!
             The Fourteenth Amendment was ratified on July 9, 1868, and is one of the most important legal weaponS in Black America's struggle for equality (Davis, 11). Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment declares that " No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws" (Bagley A-6). The basic meaning of the amendment is that people are equally entitled to fundamental rights (Schwartz, 100). Its intention was for the individual to possess basic civil rights and to describe how he is affected by basic agencies of the states. In theory the "people" of the United States were now whites and minorities, and everyone should enjoy freedom equally (101).
             The Fourteenth amendment did have its shortcomings though. The way it was designed, lent itself to work on a state level rather than a federal level (Loevy 7). This meant that the federal government didn't have as much power as the individual states in enforcing the law and therefore allowed for discrimination by private citizens. There was the notion of a "free white jury that will never convict" (8). White southerners knew that a jury of their peers would never convict them for crimes such as murder, lynching, and blatant discrimination. It became routine that whites had their free will to personally enforce racial segregation.
             The first landmark case in the fight for racial integration and equality was Plessy v. Ferguson. In this case a railroad attendant refused to provide a sleeping car for an African American. It went to court under the fourteenth amendment and the Supreme Court eventually ruled that segregation of blacks and whites was constitutionall...