or white and colored children . . . (Plessy v. Ferguson 544).
Thus, although state laws must be "reasonable," that is, "enacted in good faith for the promotion of the public good, and not for the annoyance or oppression of a particular class, "state legislatures are, nevertheless,
. . . at liberty to act with reference to the established usages, customs, and traditions of the people, and with a view to the promotion of their comfort, and the preservation of the public peace and good order (Plessy v. Ferguson 550).
The Plessy case formed the basis of the Supreme Court's
"separate but equal" doctrine until the School Segregation Cases of 1954 (Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka and Bolling v. Sharpe), in which the doctrine was "expressly overruled in its application to public education" (Beth 1090). The case under consideration here, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (Kansas), consolidated cases on review from four states-Kansas, South Carolina, Virginia, and Delaware. Three of these states, South Carolina, Virginia, and Delaware, had constitutio
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