Plessey's Law: Understanding Homer's Broken Law

Homer Plessy was an American shoemaker and activist who deliberately broke the 1890 Louisiana Separate Car Act, which required separate accommodations for black and white citizens on public transport. Plessy, who was of mixed race, boarded a whites-only train car in New Orleans in 1892, and when asked to move to the blacks-only car, refused and was arrested. This act of civil disobedience led to the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson, which established the infamous separate but equal doctrine for assessing the constitutionality of racial segregation laws.

Homer Plessy was arrested for violating the 1890 Louisiana Separate Car Act

Plessy, an American shoemaker and activist, was recruited by the civil rights group Comité des Citoyens (Committee of Citizens) to participate in an orchestrated test case to challenge the Louisiana Separate Car Act. The group was dedicated to repealing the law and sought to bring a test case before the courts to force a ruling on the constitutionality of segregation laws. Plessy's arrest was a deliberate act of civil disobedience, designed to provoke a legal challenge to the law.

On the day of his arrest, Plessy purchased a first-class ticket for a train bound for Covington, Louisiana, from the Press Street Depot in New Orleans. He then boarded the "Whites Only" car of the East Louisiana Railroad. The conductor asked Plessy if he was a "colored" man, to which Plessy replied that he was one-eighth black. When Plessy refused to move to the "blacks-only" car, the conductor stopped the train and summoned Detective Christopher Cain, who arrested Plessy and forcibly removed him from the train.

Plessy was charged with violating the Louisiana Separate Car Act and brought before Judge John Howard Ferguson in a state criminal district court. Plessy's lawyers argued that the Act was unconstitutional and violated the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution, which provided for equal protection under the law. However, Judge Ferguson ruled against Plessy, upholding the law on the grounds that Louisiana had the right to regulate railroads within its borders.

Plessy's case eventually made its way to the United States Supreme Court, where it became known as Plessy v. Ferguson. Unfortunately for Plessy and the cause of civil rights, the Supreme Court ruled against him, establishing the "`separate but equal` doctrine" as a legal basis for segregation laws. This decision had far-reaching consequences, legitimizing racial segregation and paving the way for the Jim Crow laws that endured in the United States for several decades.

Plessy was charged under the Act and challenged its constitutionality

Homer Plessy was charged under the Separate Car Act of 1890, which required separate accommodations for black and white people on railroads. The Act was passed by the Louisiana State Legislature and mandated that "white citizens and black citizens had to ride in separate railroad cars".

Plessy, who was of mixed race, deliberately boarded a "whites-only" train car in New Orleans on June 7, 1892. He purchased a first-class ticket and took a seat in the whites-only car. When the conductor asked him if he was a "coloured" man, Plessy replied that he was one-eighth black. He refused to move to the "blacks-only" car and was subsequently arrested.

Plessy was charged under the Separate Car Act and challenged its constitutionality. His lawyers argued that the Act violated the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution, which provided for equal protection under the law. They claimed that the Act imposed a "badge of servitude" and denied Plessy equal protection under the law.

However, Judge John Howard Ferguson denied Plessy's request to dismiss the charges, ruling that Louisiana had the right to regulate railroads within its borders. Plessy then appealed to the Louisiana Supreme Court, which upheld Ferguson's ruling. Plessy's attorneys requested a rehearing, but this was denied.

Undeterred, Plessy took his case to the United States Supreme Court. The Supreme Court issued a 7-1 decision against Plessy in May 1896, ruling that the Louisiana law did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court held that while the Fourteenth Amendment guaranteed legal equality, it did not require the elimination of all "distinctions based upon colour". The Court also rejected the argument that segregation laws implied the inferiority of black people.

Judge John Howard Ferguson ruled against Plessy, upholding the law

On June 7, 1892, Homer Plessy, a 30-year-old man of colour, boarded a segregated East Louisiana Railroad train in New Orleans. Plessy, who appeared white, had one African great-grandparent. When he took a seat in the "whites-only" car, he informed the conductor that he was one-eighth Black. After refusing to move to the "Blacks-only" car, Plessy was arrested for violating the Louisiana Separate Car Act of 1890, which mandated segregation in railway cars based on race.

The Separate Car Act, also known as the Louisiana Railway Car Act, required Louisiana rail companies to provide "separate but equal" accommodations for white and non-white passengers. The law stipulated that the rail cars be equal in facilities and that whites and blacks were banned from sitting in each other's designated cars. Passengers or railway employees who violated the law would be penalised.

Plessy's case, Homer Adolph Plessy v. The State of Louisiana, was presided over by Judge John Howard Ferguson of the criminal district court for the Parish of New Orleans, Louisiana. Judge Ferguson ruled that the state of Louisiana had the authority to regulate railroad companies operating within its borders. He upheld the constitutionality of the Separate Car Act in intrastate cases, concluding that the state could choose to regulate intrastate railroad companies.

Plessy's defence team, led by Albion Winegar Tourgee, a white lawyer from New York who advocated for African-American rights, argued that the Separate Car Act violated the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause, which prohibits states from denying equal protection under the law to any person within their jurisdiction. They contended that the law stigmatised Blacks and infringed on their social rights. However, Judge Ferguson disagreed and ruled against Plessy, upholding the law. He determined that the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of equality extended only to political and civil rights, such as voting and jury service, and not to social rights, such as seating choices in railway cars.

Following Judge Ferguson's ruling, Plessy's case was appealed to the Louisiana Supreme Court, which affirmed the decision that the Louisiana Separate Car Act was constitutional. Plessy then petitioned the Supreme Court of the United States, resulting in the landmark case Plessy v. Ferguson. Unfortunately for Plessy, the Supreme Court upheld racial segregation in public places, setting a precedent for the "separate but equal" doctrine that would persist until the mid-twentieth century.

Plessy's case reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled 7-1 against him

Plessy's case, which began in 1892, reached the U.S. Supreme Court in 1896. The case, Plessy v. Ferguson, was a landmark decision that ruled that racial segregation laws did not violate the U.S. Constitution as long as the facilities for each race were equal in quality. This became known as the "separate but equal" doctrine. The Supreme Court issued a 7-1 decision against Plessy, upholding the constitutionality of Louisiana's train car segregation laws. The Court first dismissed any claim that the Louisiana law—the Separate Car Act of 1890—violated the Thirteenth Amendment, which, in the majority's opinion, did no more than ensure that Black Americans had the basic level of legal equality needed to abolish slavery.

Next, the Court considered whether the law violated the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause, which states that no state shall "deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." The Court acknowledged that the Fourteenth Amendment was meant to guarantee the legal equality of all races in the United States. However, they reasoned that it was not intended to prevent social or other types of discrimination. In their opinion, the Court stated:

> "The object of the [Fourteenth] Amendment was undoubtedly to enforce the absolute equality of the two races before the law, but in the nature of things, it could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color, or to enforce social, as distinguished from political equality, or a commingling of the two races upon terms unsatisfactory to either."

The Court held that laws requiring racial separation were within Louisiana's police power, which is the state's core sovereign authority to pass laws on matters of "health, safety, and morals." According to the Court, the question in any case involving racial segregation law was whether the law was reasonable, and they gave state legislatures broad discretion to determine the reasonableness of the laws they passed.

Plessy's lawyers had argued that segregation laws inherently implied that Black people were inferior and, therefore, stigmatized them with a second-class status that violated the Equal Protection Clause. However, the Court rejected this argument, stating:

> "We consider the underlying fallacy of the plaintiff's argument to consist in the assumption that the enforced separation of the two races stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority. If this be so, it is not by reason of anything found in the act, but solely because the colored race chooses to put that construction on it."

Justice John Marshall Harlan was the lone dissenter from the Court's decision. He strongly disagreed with the majority's conclusion that the Louisiana railcar law did not imply that Black people were inferior, and he accused them of willful ignorance on the issue. In his dissent, Harlan wrote:

> "Every one knows that the statute in question had its origin in the purpose, not so much to exclude white people from railroad cars occupied by blacks, as to exclude colored people from coaches occupied by or assigned to white persons... No one would be so wanting in candor as to assert the contrary."

Harlan also pointed out that the Louisiana law contained an exception for "nurses attending children of the other race," which allowed Black women who were nannies to white children to be in the white-only train cars. He argued that this showed that the law allowed Black people to be in white-only cars only if they were obviously "social subordinates" or "domestics."

In his now-famous dissent, Harlan forcefully argued that even though many white Americans of the late 19th century considered themselves superior to those of other races, the U.S. Constitution was "color-blind" regarding the law and civil rights. He wrote:

> "The white race deems itself to be the dominant race in this country. And so it is in prestige, in achievements, in education, in wealth and in power... 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."

Plessy v. Ferguson had far-reaching consequences, ushering in an era of legally sanctioned racial segregation in public places across the South. While the case is widely regarded as one of the worst decisions in U.S. Supreme Court history, it was never explicitly overruled. However, it was severely weakened by later decisions, particularly Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, which held that the "separate but equal" doctrine is unconstitutional in the context of public schools.

Plessy's case upheld the separate but equal doctrine for racial segregation laws

Homer Plessy was an American shoemaker and activist who was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1858, 1862, or 1863. Plessy was best known as the plaintiff in the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), which upheld the "separate but equal" doctrine for assessing the constitutionality of racial segregation laws.

In 1892, Plessy violated the Louisiana Separate Car Act, which required separate accommodations for white and black citizens on railroads. Plessy, who was seven-eighths white and one-eighth African American, purchased a first-class ticket for a "whites-only" train coach, boarded the train, and refused to move to the "blacks-only" car when asked. He was arrested and charged with violating the Separate Car Act.

Plessy's case eventually made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled against him in an infamous 7-1 decision. The Court's ruling upheld the constitutionality of Louisiana's train car segregation laws and established the "`separate but equal` doctrine as a legal basis for racial segregation". This doctrine held that state-mandated segregation did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment as long as the facilities provided for both black and white people were putatively equal.

The "separate but equal" doctrine solidified the era of legalized racial segregation in the United States, known as the Jim Crow era. It would be more than half a century before the "separate but equal" doctrine was overturned by the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education (1954).

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