John Marshall Harlan

The ruling gave a green light to Jim Crow laws across the South, legitimizing separate schools, water fountains, and restaurants.

Writing alone in a famous dissent, Justice John Marshall Harlan issued a prophetic warning.

"Our Constitution is colorblind.

The thin disguise of equal accommodations will not mislead anyone, nor atone for the wrong this day done." That single decision gave legal cover to systemic segregation, splitting daily life in America in two, until Supreme Court justices finally overturned it 60 years later.

Does equality before the law mean that nobody believes himself to be superior or inferior to others? Does the Fourteenth Amendment guarantee that we must all enjoy the same social status? Can the Constitution ensure that no one feels slighted, ignored, or overlooked? Do citizens have a constitutional right to feel welcome and included in everything? In his dissenting opinion in Plessy v.

Ferguson, eighteen ninety-six, Justice John Marshall Harlan emphasized that the Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection Clause guarantees that all are equal before the law.

His understanding of this principle was that 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.

So I doubt not it will continue to be for all time if it remains true to its great heritage and holds fast to the principles of constitutional liberty.

That argument didn't work.

The court that ultimately decided Plessy v. Ferguson consisted of Chief Justice Melville Fuller and Justices Stephen Field, John Marshall Harlan, Horace Gray, David Brewer, Henry Billings Brown.

George Shearer's Edward Douglas White and Rufus Peckham.

Man, what a collection of 19th century names.

Six of the seven justices in the majority came from northern families.

The only dissenter was the one justice who had been born into a slave-holding family.

In his book Separate, Luxembourg creates a narrative around the contrasting lives of the author of the majority opinion in Plessy, Henry Billings Brown, and the author of The Lone Descent, John Marshall Harlan.

The two men were close contemporaries, and their early careers ran on nearly parallel tracks before diverging in unexpected ways.

it."

On the other side, Justice John Marshall Harlan was the only one who dissented, stating that on a functional level, quote, the white race deems itself to be the dominant race in this country.

And that behavior is unconstitutional.

He used the term colorblind to describe the Constitution, arguing that the rights in the Constitution apply to everyone.