U.S. Supreme Court ruled the Civil Rights Act of 1875 unconstitutional. The act granted all Americans, regardless of race, access to public accommodations and facilities such as restaurants, theaters, trains and other public transportation, and protected the right to serve on juries. The case would later be linked to two Supreme Court cases: Plessy v. Ferguson, in 1896, which ruled that designating separate railway cars for whites and Blacks was constitutional, as long as the facilities were "equal,” and Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka in 1954, which ruled that separate public schools for Black and white students was unconstitutional.

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