em of control. The South remained committed to white supremacy, only in a different guise. Segregation replaced slavery as the tool of oppression (White, p. 24).
For whites, the end of the slave-master relationship necessitated this new structure so as to clearly announce white superiority. The Civil War and resulting Constitutional changes supposedly created equality, at least in the eyes of the law. To re-establish dominance, whites turned to segregation. As psychologist Kenneth Clark wrote, ôracial problems have not been problems of racial contact.àIt is not the sitting next to a white, but the fact that this implies equal statusö (Wicker, p. 78).
The Supreme Court often aided this process, and next to the Dred Scott case, Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) may have been the CourtÆs most ignominious decision. Plessy involved a Louisiana law that required separate accommodations for whites and blacks on railroad cars. The Court upheld the doctrine of ôseparate but equal,ö declaring that states had the power to require the ôseparation [of races] in places where they are liable to be brought into contact.ö For more than half a century, Plessy provided the basis for separation of the races, especially in the South and espec
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