In the worst travesty of all, the Supreme Court of the United States (with Justice Harlan as the lone dissenter and Justice Brewer not participating) failed to overturn Jim Crow laws. The high court gave its tacit blessing to "separate but equal" laws in Plessy v Ferguson. Here is a partial quote from the court's decision:

...We consider the underlying fallacy of the plaintiff's [Plessy'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 any-thing found in the act, but solely because the colored race chooses to put that construction upon it.

It is fair to ask: "What other construction could possibly apply?"

Here's what Justice Harlan thought about it. His dissent accurately described the pernicious nature of the Court's decision:

The thin disguise of "equal" accommodations for passengers in railroad coaches will not mislead anyone, nor atone for the wrong this day done.

The Supreme Court, after Plessy, moved from affirming laws which allowed segregation to approving laws which required it.

As the judiciary helped to create America's apartheid, the executive and legislative branches of the federal government did nothing to stop it. Before long, Mississippi even passed a law which made it illegal for anyone to promote the concept of equality.

Any person...urging or presenting for public acceptance or general information...arguments or suggestions in favor of social equality...shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and subject to fine...or imprisonment...or both.

Americans still struggle with the concept that race laws restricting the lives and livelihood of people could have been passed in the "land of the free and the home of the brave." Citizens who endured those laws still remember the humiliation. It was bad enough the laws were passed in the first place. It is nearly incomprehensible that the Supreme Court of the United States upheld them for so many years.