‘The Supreme Court was the main obstacle to the achievement of African American Civil Rights between 1865 and 1915’. How far do you agree?

The Supreme Court lack of involvement regarding African American was an obstacle to the achievement of their social rights between 1985 and 1915. The Supreme Court can be accused for creating an obstacle because they were incredibly lenient towards white southerners in comparison to African Americans towards the end of the period. This view can be supported in the 1883 case whereby members of the Supreme Court ruled the Second Civil Rights Act of 1875 unconstitutional; as a result African Americans were not entitled to ‘full accommodation’ in public places. This case is extremely important in highlighting the Supreme Court’s lack of involvement in achieving African American Civil Rights between 1865 and 1915 because by ruling the Second Civil Rights Act unconstitutional it enables similar cases in the future to be ruled out in the same which was the situation in 1896. Plessy vs. Ferguson in 1896 was ruled constitutional, stating that African Americans were ‘separate but equal’, in other words, racially separate facilities, if equal, did not violate the constitution as ‘segregation’ in the eyes of the Court, ‘was not discrimination’. The importance of this case meant that white southerners were able to ignore particular amendments which impacted negatively on African Americans achieving their social rights as they could now segregate all form of life with the Supreme Court’s support. Cummings vs. The Board of Education case in 1899 is a clear example of this because it indicates how Supreme Court principle, ‘separate but equal’ was used to confirm that a African American high school should still get knocked down despite only having 5 throughout the whole of Georgia, suppressing them of their civil right. Even so, it was Supreme Court response to white southerners which was the main obstacle to the achievement of African American Civil Rights earlier in the period. The establishment of Black Codes passed by Southern states in 1865 and 1866, after the Civil War were one of the difficulties African Americans faced. These laws had the intent and the effect of restricting their social freedom, which included African American being able to testify against whites in courts and being able to marry a white person. This action caused a great deal of problems for blacks as white southerners were willing to do anything to maintain the old social order. Though African Americans were no longer slaves, they would still be segregated against and placed at the bottom of society. Jim Crow Laws enforced by state legislatures in the 1880s and 90s also created an obstacle, causing segregation to become more official emphasising the idea that blacks were second class citizens. This is significant in terms of hindering African American’s rights because this encouraged groups such as the KKK to form before the end of reconstruction, setting about violent attacks on African American. The fact there were no public conviction of lynching and black people being frequently set alight demonstrates how effective white attitudes played a huge part in influencing the Supreme Court to overlook African American social rights. Overall, I do believe that the Supreme Court contributed in hindering the achievement of African American civil rights between 1865 and 1915 as they were clearly not interested about them, ruling in favour of state legislatures which meant black people had to overcome several challenges, however, white southern attitudes was by far, the main obstacle to the achievement of African American Civil Rights. This is solely because they were responsible of introducing laws such as the black codes and later, the Jim Crow laws, all of which influenced violent groups to form which impacted negatively on blacks social rights because they lived in fear of being attacked and knowing nothing would be done about it if brought to state governments or Supreme Court.