Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) Separate

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

Separate and not equal: Homer Plessy, the first 'Rosa Parks'

On June 7, 1892, a thirty-year-old shoemaker by the name of Homer Plessy engaged in an act of deliberate, radical civil disobedience: he sat down on a train. By birth, Plessy was considered one-eighths black and seven-eighths white. While Plessy appeared Caucasian to most observers, he was considered black under Louisiana law (Pilgrim 2000). Plessy undertook his act of civil disobedience because of the urging of by two groups fighting racism, Comite des Citoyens and the black newspaper, the Crusader. By sitting in the 'whites only' rail car of the east Louisiana Railroad he broke the so-called 'Jim Crow' laws of his state and created the foundation for a legal case that would eventually make its way to the United States Supreme Court and have repercussions that would affect African-Americans for nearly a century.

Plessy, much like Civil Rights pioneer Rosa Parks, had committed a crime simply by behaving like the white individuals around him. Like Parks, Plessy's action was calculated to use the legal system to overturn the racist legislation that was swiftly relegating African-Americans to the status of second-class citizens within the post-Reconstruction South. Plessy and his defenders argued that the so-called 'separate but equal' provisions separating whites and blacks from co-mingling on train cars violated the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. The Thirteenth Amendment abolished the institution of slavery; the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause mandated that states provide equal protection to all individuals within their jurisdiction.

However, the Louisiana Supreme Court judge presiding over the Plessy case, John Howard Ferguson, ruled that Louisiana had the right to regulate railroad companies as long as they operated within state boundaries and were thus not subject to federal interstate commerce laws (Cozzens 1995). The United States Supreme Court was even more explicit in its findings in favor of the state and 'separate but equal legislation': "Laws permitting, and even requiring (the separation of blacks and whites) in places where they are liable to be brought into contact do not necessarily imply the inferiority of either race to the other…the argument also assumes that social prejudice may be overcome by legislation, and that equal rights cannot be secured to the Negro except by an enforced commingling of the two races. We cannot accept this proposition. If the two races are to meet on terms of social equality, it must be the result of natural affinities" (Pilgrim 2000).