Neither Knows Nor Tolerates

But in view of the Constitution, in the eye of the law, there is in this country no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens.  There is no caste here.  Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens.  In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law.  The humblest is the peer of the most powerful.  The law regards man as man, and takes no account of his surroundings or of his color when his civil rights as guaranteed by the supreme law of the land are involved.  It is, therefore, to be regretted that this high tribunal, the final expositor of the fundamental law of the land, has reached the conclusion that it is competent for a State to regulate the enjoyment by citizens of their civil rights solely upon the basis of race. ...

The sure guarantee of the peace and security of each race is the clear, distinct, unconditional recognition by our governments, National and State, of every right that inheres in civil freedom, and of the equality before the law of all citizens of the United States without regard to race.

-- Justice John Marshall Harlan, dissenting in Plessy v. Ferguson (18 May 1896), which held that the Fourteenth Amendment allowed "separate but equal" accommodations by race; Plessy was overturned in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (17 May 1954), ending racial segregation in public schools [h/t Heather Cox Richardson]