Segregation

1865-1965
After the Civil War, state and local laws were written mandating the separation of races. In 1892, Mr. Homer Plessy sued Louisiana challenging that state’s segregation laws and lost. He appealed and in 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled segregation laws were constitutional as long as segregated facilities were equal in quality or “separate but equal.” In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously in Brown v. Board of Education that laws requiring segregated schools were unconstitutional, challenging the precedent set by Plessy v. Ferguson 58 years earlier. However, this decision did not spell out a method for ending segregation in schools. The Brown Decision would have no substantive effect in Georgia until 1965.

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Coffee County Centennial Celebration’s Youth Day Parade, May 12, 1954