Which of these best describes the immediate effect of the plessy v. ferguson decision?
a. states passed segregationist legislation and expanded jim crow.
b. southern blacks became fearful and moved to cities in the north.
c. states tried to keep segregation and jim crow from becoming the law.
d. southerners protested peacefully and had sit-ins calling for their rights.

The correct answer is A. The immediate effect of the Plessy v. Ferguson decision was that states passed segregationist legislation and expanded Jim Crow Laws.

Explanation:

Plessy v. Ferguson was a United States Supreme Court ruling in 1896 that Louisiana state law, which made separate but equal railways for blacks and whites mandatory, was not unconstitutional. The decision formed the legal basis for state and local government racial segregation practices until 1954, when it was overturned by the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education.  

In 1890, the Louisiana Separate Car Act had been enacted by the state of Louisiana, which had prescribed segregated train wagons for blacks and whites in state railways. On June 7, 1892, Homer Adolph Plessy, of 7/8 Caucasian and 1/8 African lineage, stepped on a white wagon and refused to move to a black wagon. Louisiana's law defined Plessy as black, and he should by law have to sit in a black wagon. As a result, he was arrested for breaking the law and fined $ 25. The act was planned: behind it was a small group of Neworleans blacks. Following the arrest, the group challenged the constitutionality of the law and a white lawyer, Albion Tourgee, took the case. After dealing with the lower courts, the case ended in the Supreme Court in 1893. Tourgee sued Louisiana for railroad cars in violation of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. The Thirteenth Amendment prohibits slavery and the Fourteenth guarantees citizens equal treatment before the law.  

According to the Supreme Court majority decision (7-1) presented by Judge Henry Billings Brown, neither of the constitutional amendments applied to the case. The decision stated that blacks were, according to the Thirteenth Addition, politically equal to whites, but not socially because they were not as socially advanced as whites. By law, compulsory racial segregation was not derogatory to blacks either, because the law applied equally to blacks and whites: whites also were not allowed to be in black wagons.

The dissenting opinion of Judge John Marshall Harlan held that Louisiana law was unconstitutional, and while the law may have seemed equal, "everyone knew" that the real purpose of the law was "not so much to keep whites out of black wagons, but coloured out of white wagons."