GED Social Studies Practice Test 3 — Flashcards

Questions below are based on the following excerpts from two landmark Supreme Court decisions.

The first excerpt is from Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), which sustained the constitutionality of Louisiana’s racist Jim Crow law. The second excerpt is from Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (1954), which overturned the court’s previous ruling.

We consider the underlying fallacy of the plaintiff’s argument to consist in the assumption that the enforced separation of the two races stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority. If this be so, it is not by reason of anything found in the act, but solely because the colored race chooses to put that construction upon it… . The argument also assumes that social prejudice may be overcome by legislation, and that equal rights cannot be secured except by an enforced commingling of the two races… . If the civil and political rights of both races be equal, one cannot be inferior to the other civilly or politically. If one race be inferior to the other socially, the Constitution of the United States cannot put them upon the same plane.

— Plessy v. Ferguson    

To separate them from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone. We conclude that, in the field of public education, the doctrine of “separate but equal” has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.

— Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas