As we near our country’s 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, one would think all Americans, however politically divided, would agree that its ringing words, invoking Creator-endowed inalienable rights, should be applauded. But if you think this is one document upon which we can all agree, think again.
At the University of Texas School of Law, Justice Clarence Thomas beautifully spoke to the hope these words have long given to the country’s disadvantaged black community, both when enslaved and decades following. But as the “Progressive” era beckoned around the turn of the century, this hope was not fulfilled, as, per just one example, the Supreme Court in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) embodied the “separate but equal” doctrine in preference to the lone “color-blind constitution” dissent of Justice John Marshall Harlan. Thomas noted that it took 60 years to reverse that hated “separate but equal” doctrine, referring to Brown v. Board of Education in 1954.
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