D. The Supreme Court rulings said civil rights were decided by state and local law.
Explanation:
The Civil Rights Act of 1875, presented by Charles Sumner and Benjamin F. Butler, established the guarantee that everyone, regardless of race, color, or precondition of servitude, was entitled to the same treatment in public services, such as hotels , public transport, theaters, and other places of recreation. This law had little impact on nineteenth-century American society.
Soon after the promulgation, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the law was unconstitutional in several respects, arguing that Congress did not have control over individuals or private companies. With the white Democratic representatives of the South united in a solid bloc within the Congress, and having an exaggerated power within it, Congress did not pass another civil rights law until 1957.
In 1890, Louisiana passed a law that required the creation of separate wagons for blacks and whites on the railroads. Louisiana law emphasized the differentiation between "white," "black," and "colored" (referring to people of mixed descent). The law specified that blacks could not mix with white people, but "colored" people were able to travel in the same wagons as whites until 1890. A group of black, white and mestizo citizens of New Orleans formed an association whose objective It was the repeal of the law. The group convinced Homer Plessy, who was only an eighth "black" and light complexion, to challenge her.
In 1892, Plessy bought a first-class ticket from the East Louisiana Railroad company at a New Orleans station. Having boarded the train, he informed the drivers of his racial lineage and took a seat in the exclusive white car. He was ordered to leave his seat and go to the wagon for mestizos. Plessy refused and was immediately arrested. The New Orleans Citizens Committee took the case to the Supreme Court of the United States, where they lost the Plessy case against Ferguson in 1896, when the Court declared that "separate but equal" policies were constitutional. The litigation contributed to 58 more years of legal discrimination against black and mestizo people in the United States.
