Plessy v. Ferguson

Setting the scene

Plessy v. Ferguson was a U.S. Supreme Court decision on May 18, 1896, that upheld racial segregation under the doctrine of 'separate but equal.' The case began in 1892 when Homer Plessy, a mixed-race man who was 1/8 Black, deliberately violated Louisiana's Separate Car Act by sitting in a whites-only train car. Plessy was arrested, and his case, orchestrated by the Citizens' Committee to test the law, reached the Supreme Court.

What happened

The Court ruled 7-1 against Plessy, with Justice Henry Billings Brown writing that segregation did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause as long as facilities were equal. The Court argued that legal separation did not imply inferiority, and that if Black people felt inferior, it was 'not by reason of anything found in the act, but solely because the colored race chooses to put that construction upon it.' Justice John Marshall Harlan dissented, writing 'our Constitution is color-blind' and predicting the decision would be as infamous as Dred Scott.

Why it still matters

Plessy legalized Jim Crow segregation for 58 years, allowing Southern states to impose separate schools, transportation, and public facilities that were invariably unequal. The decision was not overturned until Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. Plessy exemplified how the Supreme Court could entrench racism in law and demonstrates the limits of formal equality without substantive equality. The case remains a cautionary tale about judicial deference to discriminatory social norms and the long struggle for civil rights in America.

Background

Jim Crow segregation deepened for decades.