1868 marked a proud year for African Americans with the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. It proclaimed that “no State shall make or enforce any law abridging the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” A milestone in the progress of black rights, this seemingly life-saving legislation for former slaves in no way prevented future hardships. In the Southern states, efforts were made to prevent blacks from reaping the benefits given to them by the Fourteenth Amendment by maintaining the position of blacks at the bottom of the social hierarchy thus keeping the idea of ​​slavery alive without actually keeping slavery alive. An example of this is the Jim Crow laws of 1876 which required the organization of separate bathrooms, waiting facilities, restaurants, prisons, schools and textbooks, militia, and transportation. He also denied intermarriage, among many other obstacles inflicted by this legislation. 2Although Jim Crow was clearly inconsistent with the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of citizens' full benefits, it was vindicated by the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson case in which the Supreme Court upheld Louisiana's Separate Car Act, requiring racially segregated rail facilities, provided that that these structures were equal. This “separate but equal” doctrine was quickly and legally applied…middle of the paper…analyzing the historical meaning without me telling them what to think. This way students could see the argument more tangibly, see how and why the two sides differed, and the basis of both sides' justification. Students could then decide independently which side they actually favor. Finally, as homework I would assign reading excerpts from “Warriors Don't Cry,” the memoir by Melba Pattillo Beals, one of the Little Rock Nine. I would ask students to pretend they were students at Central High in 1957 and write a page-long journal entry about what they would see and how it would feel at that time. All these activities would promote student-centered learning as they are free to arrive at their own conclusions independently and would help develop formal operational skills through hypothetical deductive logic..