. . . [W]e think the enforced separation of the races, as applied to the internal commerce of the State, neither abridges the privileges or immunities of the colored man, deprives him of his property without due process of law, nor denies him the equal protection of the laws within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. . . . We consider the underlying fallacy of the plaintiff’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 anything found in the act, but solely because the colored race chooses to put that construction upon it.
—Plessy v. Ferguson, 1896
To separate [students] from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community. . . . Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children. The impact is greater when it has the sanction of the law . . . We conclude that, in the field of public education, the doctrine of “separate but equal” has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.
—Brown v. Board of Education, 1954
How was the constitutionality of the concept of “separate but equal” interpreted differently in the Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Board of Education decisions? How do these different interpretations support the idea of the Constitution as a “living” or flexable document?