Throughout American history, many minorities have been victims of cruel discrimination and inequalities, African Americans were one of those minorities who suffered greatly from the domination of the white majority. After the end of the Civil War and the subsequent Reconstruction period, many people, especially the Southern population, were extremely against African Americans gaining equal rights in American society. For this reason, these opponents did everything in their power to limit and even completely deprive African Americans of their rights. The 1896 Supreme Court case Plessy v Ferguson is an excellent example of the obstacles placed by white people against their black counterparts in their long and arduous struggle for civil liberty and equality. Although the court upheld Louisiana's discriminatory law in an 8-1 decision, John Marshall Harlan's dissent in the case played a significant role in U.S. history because it foretold all the injustices that African Americans would endure for a long time to come. time. years, mainly due to this historic decision. During the late 1800s and early 1900s, the white majority made a great effort to eradicate all the progress made during the Reconstruction era, which granted African Americans equal rights. Those who were involved in politics called themselves Redeemers because they tried to redeem the South from the "bad government" and corruption of its precedents (those in favor of equality). Whites punished them harshly for petty crimes, and their opportunities in politics slowly deteriorated. They also sought to deprive African Americans of their basic rights, more specifically the right to vote. Dominant whites implemented laws that seemed subtle in their discriminatory purposes... middle of paper... campaigned for justice, shed light on the hardships experienced by African American men who chose to resist and fight back against inequality, and also provided a example of the aforementioned effect suggested by Harlan's dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson. Finally, the compromise of Booker T. Washington's lawyers offered a solution to the problem of segregation and the general prevalence of racial discrimination. All three primary sources were tied in their ties to the issue of segregation in the late 1800s and early 1900s. In conclusion, John Marshall Harlan's dissent was certainly an accurate prediction of the various obstacles that would be thrown at the people African American. Harlan was right in all his statements; it's just a shame that it took more than fifty years for the majority to finally realize that separate and equal structures do not and cannot exist.