Jan 13, 2022
Plessy’s act of civil disobedience led to landmark court decision that legalized ‘separate but equal’ doctrine and ushered in Jim Crow era
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Plessy’s act of civil disobedience led to landmark court decision that legalized ‘separate but equal’ doctrine and ushered in Jim Crow era
Learn more about our history of racial injustice.
On this day May 18, 1896
Supreme Court Establishes “Separate But Equal” Doctrine as Law in Plessy v. Ferguson
On May 18, 1896, the U.S. Supreme Court released a 7-1 decision in Plessy v. Ferguson, a case challenging racial segregation laws in Louisiana, holding that state-mandated segregation in intrastate travel was constitutional as long as the separate accommodations were equal.
The Court had heard arguments a month earlier on April 13. Homer Plessy, a Black man who had been arrested for boarding a "white only" passenger car, argued that the state segregation law violated the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments, which abolished slavery and established equal protection of the laws.
In 1890, Louisiana passed the Separate Car Act, requiring railroad companies to provide separate passenger cars for Black and white travelers. The Comite des Citoyens (“Committee of Citizens”), a New Orleans group of Black men who employed civil disobedience to challenge segregation laws, wanted to challenge the law's constitutionality. When Mr. Plessy—a Black man—was arrested for boarding a “white only” passenger car, the committee helped him to appeal, and the case eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court.
On May 18, Justice Henry Brown wrote the majority opinion, which held that the Louisiana law did not violate the Thirteenth or Fourteenth Amendments because it did not interfere with an individual’s personal freedom or liberties. He claimed the Court could uphold the notion that all people are equal before the law in political and civil rights but could not override social inferiority based upon the distinction of race.
Justice John Marshall Harlan dissented, writing that the Louisiana law was in direct violation of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments' promise of protection of all civil rights related to freedom and citizenship. Justice Harlan specified that the law was a blatant attempt to infringe upon the civil rights of African Americans and that the Court inappropriately yielded to public sentiment at the expense of constitutional safeguards. He predicted the Court’s decision would lead to racial confrontation.
Plessy v. Ferguson legally sanctioned racial segregation by establishing the “separate but equal” doctrine as national law. Public services and accommodations were segregated for decades, until the Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954 overruled the application of “separate but equal” in public education and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited it in public accommodations.
Louisiana's governor will pardon Homer Plessy, who was arrested in 1892 for challenging a ban on Black people sitting in “whites-only” train cars.
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards on Wednesday granted a posthumous pardon to Homer Plessy, the man at the center of the landmark civil rights
(CNN) Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards on Wednesday granted a posthumous pardon to Homer Plessy, the man at the center of the landmark civil rights Supreme Court ruling, Plessy v. Ferguson.
The governor was joined by Plessy descendants at a ceremony in New Orleans, where he officially signed the pardon. The ceremony, which was attended by city leaders and relatives, was near the original location where Plessy was arrested nearly 130 years ago.
Plessy, a shoemaker, purchased a first-class ticket on June 7, 1892, to board a Louisiana train. He sat in the Whites-only section and refused to leave when a conductor ordered him to move to a rail car reserved for Blacks. He was arrested and convicted at a trial of violating the Separate Car Act of 1890.
Edwards' signature comes after the Louisiana Board of Pardons voted unanimously last November in favor of a pardon for Plessy, who died in his 60s in 1925.
Louisiana's governor on Wednesday posthumously pardoned Homer Plessy, the plaintiff in the landmark 1896 U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld the "separate but equal" doctrine and laid the legal foundation for decades of racial segregation.
Plessy’s act of civil disobedience led to landmark court decision that legalized ‘separate but equal’ doctrine and ushered in Jim Crow era
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A Louisiana board on Friday voted to pardon Homer Plessy, whose decision to sit in a “whites-only" railroad car to protest discrimination led to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1896 “separate but equal” ruling affirming state segregation laws.
The Louisiana Board of Pardons ruled unanimously to clear the conviction of Homer Plessy, related to his sitting in a "whites-only" railroad car, an act of protest that would lead to the Plessy v. Ferguson case that would serve as the basis for segregation for decades.