After the Civil War, African Americans were under attack as they struggled for equal rights in America. Laws were put in place during Reconstruction to assure Freedmen basic civil rights. The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments gave former slaves freedom, citizenship, equal privileges in each state under federal law, and the right to vote.

Many southern states made their own laws in order to block the equal treatment of African Americans. Poll taxes, black codes, and Jim Crow laws are examples of laws that denied Freedmen their rights under the Reconstruction amendments.

Slavery, and the study of the Civil War and Reconstruction, is the first introduction to the evils of prejudice for many sixth graders. Teaching students about the laws created to provide equal treatment infers that there was equal treatment. It is necessary to revisit the goals that our country had with the creation of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth amendments as we study each chapter in American history and then discuss the lack of equal treatment that was the reality.

The following lesson is one of a series of three lessons presented periodically throughout the school year. These lessons will reinforce the struggle for equal rights that African Americans face regardless of, or because of, specific Supreme Court decisions. As we teach about the growth and changes in America, it is important to teach the reality of all the human experiences, too. Lessons will be set during Pre-Civil War (the Dred Scott case), and the fifties (Brown v Board of Education). Each lesson will focus on how these specific Supreme Court Decisions affect the actions and behaviors of the country in regard to African American equality.

During the Progressive Era, while the country was creating reforms to make things better for all citizens, African Americans were still struggling for equality. Reformers were improving the problems of overcrowded cities, unregulated industry, and corruption in government. African Americans were benefiting from these changes, too, but they were living separate lives. Since segregation was constitutional, their struggle to fit in to white America in the early 1900s was much harder. In 1896, the Supreme Court decision in Plessy v Ferguson supported the segregation that the Jim Crow laws of the South had started. A precedent was set for the whole country that condoned racial segregation. The Supreme Court decision made segregation constitutional in public facilities as long as they were equal -- but they were hardly ever equal. We will explore the results of this decision and its inevitable inequalities. We will see how a Supreme Court decision can impact the actions and behaviors of a whole nation, maybe more so than an amendment to the Constitution.