for their discriminatory treatment of blacks who attempted to use such facilities in the same way as whites, in violation of the 1875 Civil Rights Act. The Court held that the statute exceeded the authority granted Congress under the 14th Amendment which outlawed discriminatory action only when taken by states themselves and not by private person (sic) against blacks.

An even more adverse ruling to rights asserted by blacks under the 14th Amendment came in 1896 in Plessy v. Ferguson. In 1892, Homer Plessy, who was classified as a black under the laws of Louisiana, was forced to leave a seat on a train in that state reserved for whites and was criminally charged. His petition for writs against Judge Ferguson to prevent further criminal proceedings was denied by Louisiana's Supreme Court. On review, the high court ruled that the segregation of the races in transportation facilities did not violate the Constitution so long as the facilities were equal. The majority opinion rationalized that any discrimination felt by black persons assigned to separate facilities, since they were equal to those used by whites, was "not by reason of anything found in the act, but solely because the colored race chooses to put that construction upon it."

This ruling encouraged the "separate but equal" development of public schools and other public facilities, primarily in former "slave" states, which blacks and other minorities adversely affected felt to be unconstitutional. Undaunted by Plessy's lack of success, they pressed the "chains of conscience" upon those states by innovative counsel.

They drew strength from Justice Harlan's dissenting argument that the Constitution is color-blind and thus does not tolerate classification on racial grounds. This dissent, together with an 1886 high court ruling in Yick Yo v. Hopkins, offered a legal basis for continuing to litigate the issue. Yick Yo was one of many Chinese operating a laundry business in San Francisco. He opposed a municipal statute prohibiting laundry businesses conducted in wooden