In 1896, the U.S. Supreme Court made a decision that would shape America for decades. Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) ruled that racial segregation was legal—as long as the facilities for each race were “equal.”
This idea became known as the “separate but equal” doctrine. It gave new power to the “Jim Crow laws” spreading across the South after Reconstruction ended in 1877.
A Train Ride That Changed History
It all started in 1892, when a man named Homer Plessy, who was of mixed race, decided to challenge a Louisiana law. The law, called the Separate Car Act of 1890, said Black and white passengers had to ride in separate train cars.
Plessy looked white but under Louisiana law, he was considered Black. He bought a first-class ticket and sat in a whites-only car on a train in New Orleans.
Plessy knew what he was doing, it was a planned act of protest. A group called the Comité des Citoyens (Committee of Citizens) had organized the whole thing to fight the unfair law.
When the train conductor asked him to move to the “colored” car, Plessy refused. Soon after, a detective—who had been hired by the group to make sure he’d be arrested properly—took him off the train at Press and Royal streets.
Plessy was charged with violating the Separate Car Act. His lawyers argued that the law went against the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution. But Judge John Howard Ferguson disagreed, saying Louisiana had the right to make its own railroad laws.
Taking the Fight Higher
Plessy’s lawyers didn’t give up. They took the case to the Louisiana Supreme Court which also sided with Ferguson. Still determined, the Committee of Citizens pushed the case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
On April 13, 1896, lawyers Albion W. Tourgée and Samuel F. Phillips argued for Plessy. Tourgée said the law violated the Fourteenth Amendment which promises “equal protection of the laws.”
He also argued that a person’s reputation and identity, being labeled as “colored” was a kind of property protected by the Constitution.
But the state’s Attorney General, Milton Joseph Cunningham, defended the law. Cunningham was known for supporting white supremacy and had even been arrested years earlier for actions meant to restore white political control after the Civil War.
The Supreme Court’s Decision
On May 18, 1896, the Supreme Court ruled against Plessy in a 7–1 decision. Justice Henry Billings Brown wrote the majority opinion, saying the Louisiana law didn’t violate the Constitution.
The Court said the Thirteenth Amendment only ended slavery, it didn’t guarantee social equality. As for the Fourteenth Amendment, the Court said it protected legal equality, not social mixing.
“The object of the [Fourteenth] Amendment was undoubtedly to enforce the absolute equality of the two races before the law,” Justice Brown wrote, “but in the nature of things, it could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color.”
The Court decided that if Black people felt segregation made them inferior, that was their own interpretation—not the law’s intention.
“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.”
This decision gave states the freedom to enforce segregation under the idea of “separate but equal.”
The Lone Voice of Dissent
Justice John Marshall Harlan was the only one who disagreed. His powerful dissent became one of the most famous in Supreme Court history. He saw the truth behind the Louisiana law. It wasn’t about keeping white and Black passengers comfortable. It was about control and exclusion.
“Every one knows that the statute in question had its origin in the purpose… to compel [Black people] to keep to themselves while traveling in railroad passenger coaches,” Harlan wrote.
He also pointed out how the law allowed exceptions for Black nurses who cared for white children, showing that Black people could enter “white” spaces only when serving them.
Then came his unforgettable words: “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.”
Harlan warned that this ruling would be as shameful as Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), which had once declared Black Americans could never be U.S. citizens.
What Happened After
After losing at the Supreme Court, Plessy returned to court in Louisiana in 1897. He changed his plea to guilty and paid a $25 fine instead of going to jail. The Comité des Citoyens disbanded soon after.
But the effects of the decision spread quickly. Across the South, new segregation laws appeared—separating everything from schools to restaurants, parks and hospitals. The so-called “separate but equal” rule became the excuse for keeping Black Americans in second-class conditions.
In reality, the facilities for Black people were rarely equal. Schools, buses and public places were underfunded and poorly maintained. Even in Northern states, segregation often happened unofficially, through policies and local customs.
Justice Harlan had predicted it all: “We shall enter upon an era of constitutional law, when the rights of freedom and American citizenship cannot receive… efficient protection.”
The Long Road to Change
For decades, Plessy v. Ferguson stood as the law of the land. It wasn’t until Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 that the Supreme Court began to undo its damage. In that case, the Court ruled that segregation in public schools was unconstitutional, effectively overturning Plessy.
Even though Plessy was never officially overruled, later laws like the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 ended legal segregation and protected the right to vote for all citizens.
In 2009, the descendants of both sides—Keith Plessy and Phoebe Ferguson—created the Plessy and Ferguson Foundation for Education and Reconciliation. Their goal was to teach future generations about the case through art, film and education.
That same year, a historical marker was placed at the corner of Press and Royal Streets in New Orleans—the very spot where Homer Plessy was arrested.
More than a century later, in 2021, the Louisiana Board of Pardons unanimously approved a posthumous pardon for Homer Plessy. Governor John Bel Edwards signed it on January 5, 2022.
