Plessy vs. Ferguson (1896)

Plessy vs. Ferguson is a landmark United states Supreme court decision, upholding the constitutionality of state laws requiring racial segregation in public facilities under the doctrine of “separate but equal”

In 1890, the state of Louisiana passed a law (the "Separate Car Act") that required separate accommodations for blacks and whites on railroads, including separate railway cars. Concerned, a group of prominent black, and white New Orleans residents formed the Comité des Citoyens (Committee of Citizens) dedicated to repeal the law. They eventually persuaded Homer Plessy to participate in an orchestrated test case. Plessy was born a free man and was an “octoroon" (someone of seven-eighths Caucasian descent and one-eighth African descent). However, under Louisiana law, he was classified as black, and thus required to sit in the "colored" car.

On June 7, 1892, Plessy bought a first class ticket at the Press Street Depot and boarded a "whites only" car of the east louisana railroad in New Orleans, Louisana. The railroad company, which opposed the law on the grounds that it would require the purchase of more railcars, had been informed already as to Plessy's racial lineage. Additionally, the committee hired a private detective with arrest powers to detain Plessy, to ensure he was charged for violating the Separate Car Act, as opposed to a vagrancy or some other offense. After Plessy had taken a seat in the whites-only railway car, he was asked to vacate it and sit instead in the blacks-only car. Plessy refused and was arrested immediately by the detective. As planned, the train was stopped and Plessy was taken off the train at Press and Royal streets. Plessy was remanded for trial in Orleans Parish.

In his case, Homer Adolph Plessy v In his case, Homer Adolph Plessy v. The State of Louisiana, Plessy argued that the state law which required East Louisiana Railroad to segregate trains had denied him his rights under the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution. However, the judge presiding over his case, John Howard Ferguson, ruled that Louisiana had the right to regulate railroad companies as long as they operated within state boundaries. Plessy was convicted and sentenced to pay a $25 fine. He immediately sought to fight the case. Committee of Citizens took Plessy's appeal to the Supreme Court Of Louisana, where he again found an unreceptive ear, as the state Supreme Court upheld Judge Ferguson's ruling. Undaunted, the Committee appealed to the United States Supreme Court in 1896. Two legal briefs were submitted on Plessy's behalf. Oral arguments were held before the Supreme Court on April 13, 1896.

Plessy’s lawyer built his case upon violations of Plessy's rights under the Thirteenth Amendment, prohibiting slavery, and the Fourteenth Amendment, which guarantees the same rights to all citizens of the United States, and the equal protection of those rights, against the deprivation of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. He argued that the reputation of being a black man was "property," which, by the law, implied the inferiority of African-Americans as compared to whites.

The Decision In a 7 to 1 decision handed down on May 18, 1896, the Court rejected Plessy's arguments based on the Fourteenth Amendment, seeing no way in which the Louisiana statute violated it. In addition, the majority of the Court rejected the view that the Louisiana law implied any inferiority of blacks, in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Instead, it contended that the law separated the two races as a matter of public policy. The case helped cement the legal foundation for the doctrine of separate but equal, the idea that segregation based on classifications was legal as long as facilities were of equal quality. However, Southern state governments refused to provide blacks with genuinely equal facilities and resources in the years after the Plessy decision. The states not only separated races but, in actuality, ensured differences in quality. In January 1897, Homer Plessy pleaded guilty to the violation and paid the fine.