View source for Plessy v. Ferguson

{{short description|1896 U.S. Supreme Court case on racial segregation}}
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{{Use American English|date=May 2022}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=December 2018}}
{{Infobox SCOTUS case
|Litigants           = Plessy v. Ferguson
|ArgueDate           = April 13
|ArgueYear           = 1896
|DecideDate          = May 18
|DecideYear          = 1896
|FullName            = [[Homer Plessy|Homer A. Plessy]] v. John H. Ferguson
|USVol               = 163
|USPage              = 537
|ParallelCitations   = 16 S. Ct. 1138; 41 [[L. Ed.]] 256; 1896 [[U.S. LEXIS]] 3390
|Docket              = 
|OralArgument        = 
|OralReargument      = 
|OpinionAnnouncement = 
|Opinion             = https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep163/usrep163537/usrep163537.pdf
|Prior               = [https://books.google.com/books?id=U4I7AAAAIAAJ ''Ex parte Plessy'', 11 So. 948 (La. 1892)]
|Subsequent          = None
|Holding             = The "[[separate but equal]]" provision of private services mandated by state law is constitutional under the [[Equal Protection Clause]].
|Majority            = Brown
|JoinMajority        = Fuller, Field, Gray, Shiras, White, Peckham
|Dissent             = Harlan
|NotParticipating    = Brewer 
|LawsApplied         = [[Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|U.S. Const. amends. XIII]], [[Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|XIV]]; [[Separate Car Act|1890 La. Acts No. 111]], p. 152, § 1
|Overruled           = (''de facto'') ''[[Brown v. Board of Education]]'' (1954), and subsequent rulings{{sfnp|Schauer|1997|p=280}}
}}
{{wikisource|Plessy v. Ferguson|''Plessy v. Ferguson''}}
'''''Plessy v. Ferguson''''', 163 U.S. 537 (1896), was a [[List of landmark court decisions in the United States|landmark]] [[Supreme Court of the United States|United States Supreme Court]] decision ruling that [[racial segregation]] laws did not violate the [[Constitution of the United States|U.S. Constitution]] as long as the facilities for each race were equal in quality, a doctrine that came to be known as "[[separate but equal]]".{{sfnp|Nowak|Rotunda|2012|loc=§ 18.8(c)}}<ref>{{cite journal |last=Groves |first=Harry E. |year=1951 |title=Separate but Equal—The Doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson |journal=Phylon |volume=12 |issue=1 |pages=66–72 |doi=10.2307/272323 |jstor=272323}}</ref> The decision legitimized the many "[[Jim Crow laws]]" re-establishing racial segregation that had been passed in the [[Southern United States|American South]] after the end of the [[Reconstruction era]] in 1877. 

The underlying case began in 1892 when [[Homer Plessy]], a mixed-race man, deliberately boarded a whites-only train car in [[New Orleans]]. By boarding the whites-only car, Plessy violated [[Louisiana]]'s [[Separate Car Act|Separate Car Act of 1890]], which required "equal, but separate" railroad accommodations for white and black passengers.<ref>{{Cite web |last=McBride |first=Alex |year=2023 |title=Separate Car Act |url=https://tulanian.tulane.edu/winter-2023/separate-car-act |quote="Accordingly, in 1890, Louisiana passed the Separate Car Act, which required “separate railway carriages for the [W]hite and colored races.” The act required that all passenger railways provide separate cars for Blacks and Whites, stipulated that the cars be “equal” in facilities, banned Whites from sitting in Black cars and Blacks in White cars (with exception to “nurses attending children of the other race”), and penalized passengers or railway employees for violating its terms."}}</ref> Plessy was charged under the Act, and at his trial his lawyers argued that judge [[John Howard Ferguson]] should dismiss the charges on the grounds that the Act was unconstitutional. Ferguson denied the request, and the [[Louisiana Supreme Court]] upheld Ferguson's ruling on appeal. Plessy then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In May 1896, the Supreme Court issued a 7–1 decision against Plessy, ruling that the Louisiana law did not violate the [[Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution]]. It held that although the Fourteenth Amendment established the legal equality of whites and blacks, it did not and could not require the elimination of all "distinctions based upon color". The Court rejected Plessy's lawyers' arguments that the Louisiana law inherently implied that black people were inferior. It gave great deference to American state legislatures' inherent power to make laws regulating health, safety, and morals—the "[[police power (United States constitutional law)|police power]]"—and to determine the reasonableness of the laws they passed. Justice [[John Marshall Harlan]] was the lone dissenter from the Court's decision, writing that the U.S. Constitution "is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens", and so the laws distinguishing races should have been found unconstitutional.

''Plessy'' is widely regarded as one of the worst decisions in U.S. Supreme Court history.<ref>{{harvp|Amar|2011|p=76}}; {{harvp|Epstein|1995|p=99}}.</ref> Despite its infamy, the decision has never been overruled explicitly.{{sfnp|Lofgren|1987|pp=204–05}} Beginning in 1954 with ''[[Brown v. Board of Education]]'', however, a series of the Court's later decisions have severely weakened ''Plessy'' to the point that it is usually considered ''de facto'' overruled.{{sfnp|Schauer|1997|pp=279–80}}

==Background==
===Legal background and incident===
In 1890, the [[Louisiana State Legislature]] passed a law called the [[Separate Car Act]], which required separate accommodations for blacks and whites on Louisiana railroads.<ref name="credoreference1">{{cite encyclopedia|url=https://eas-ref.press.jhu.edu/view?aid=373|title=Plessy v. Ferguson|encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of American Studies|date=2018|access-date=August 23, 2018}}</ref> The law required passenger train officers to "assign each passenger to the coach or compartment used for the race to which such passenger belongs". The separation was purportedly done "to promote the comfort of passengers".<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Menand |first=Louis |title=The Supreme Court Case That Enshrined White Supremacy in Law |magazine=[[The New Yorker]] |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/02/04/the-supreme-court-case-that-enshrined-white-supremacy-in-law |url-access=limited |date=January 28, 2019 |author-link=Louis Menand}}</ref> The law also made it a [[misdemeanor]] for any passenger to "insist on going into a coach or compartment to which by race he does not belong," punishable by either a $25 fine or up to 20 days in prison.

A group of prominent black, [[Louisiana Creole people|creole of color]], and white creole [[New Orleans]] residents formed a civil rights group called the [[Comité des Citoyens]] (Committee of Citizens). The group was dedicated to repealing the Separate Car Act and fighting its implementation.<ref name=freemen>{{Cite book|last=Medley|first=Keith Weldon|title=We As Freemen: Plessy v. Ferguson: The Fight Against Legal Segregation|publisher=[[Pelican Publishing Company]]|year=2003|url=https://archive.org/details/weasfreemenpless00medl|isbn=978-1-58980-120-2|access-date=May 1, 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090304180142/http://www.pelicanpub.com/PDF/1589801202-fm.pdf|archive-date=March 4, 2009}}</ref> The Comité eventually persuaded [[Homer Plessy]], a man of [[mixed race]] who was an "[[octoroon]]" (person of seven-eighths white and one-eighth black ancestry), to participate in an orchestrated [[test case (law)|test case]] to challenge the Act. Plessy had been born a free man and was fair-skinned. However, under Louisiana law, he was classified as black, and thus required to sit in the "colored" car.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Koffi N|first=Maglo|title=GENOMICS AND THE CONUNDRUM OF RACE: some epistemic and ethical considerations |journal=Perspectives in Biology and Medicine |volume=53 |issue=3 |date=Summer 2010 |id={{ProQuest|733078852}}}}</ref>

On June 7, 1892, Plessy bought a first-class ticket at the Press Street Depot and boarded a "Whites Only" car of the [[East Louisiana Railroad]] in New Orleans, Louisiana, bound for [[Covington, Louisiana]].<ref>{{cite web|title=Plessy v. Ferguson (No. 210)|url=https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0163_0537_ZS.html|publisher=Legal Information Institute|access-date=October 4, 2011}}</ref> The railroad company, which had opposed the law on the grounds that it would require the purchase of more railcars, had been previously informed of Plessy's [[Race (human categorization)|racial]] lineage, and the intent to challenge the law.<ref name=plessy&ferg/> Additionally, the Comité des Citoyens hired a private detective with arrest powers to detain Plessy, to ensure that he would be charged for violating the Separate Car Act, as opposed to vagrancy or some other offense.<ref name=plessy&ferg/> After Plessy took 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.<ref>{{cite web|title=Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)|url=https://www.thirteen.org/wnet/supremecourt/antebellum/landmark_plessy.html|publisher=PBS|access-date=October 5, 2011}}</ref> As planned, the train was stopped, and Plessy was taken off the train at Press and Royal streets.<ref name=plessy&ferg/> Plessy was remanded for trial in Orleans Parish.<ref name=Opinion>{{ussc|name=Plessy v. Ferguson|163|537|1896}}.</ref>

===Trial===
Plessy petitioned the state district criminal court to throw out the case, ''State v. Homer Adolph Plessy'',<ref>{{Cite web |date=May 19, 2021 |title=Plessy v. Ferguson: Litigation |work=Law Library of Louisiana |url= https://lasc.libguides.com/c.php?g=906254&p=6540181 |access-date=January 17, 2022}}</ref> on the grounds that the state law requiring East Louisiana Railroad to segregate trains had denied him his rights under the [[Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Thirteenth]] and [[Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fourteenth]] amendments of the United States Constitution,<ref name="jstor1973">{{cite journal|last=Maidment|first=Richard A.|title=Plessy v. Ferguson Re-Examined|journal=Journal of American Studies|volume=7|number=2|date=August 1973|pages=125–132|doi=10.1017/S0021875800013396|jstor=27553046|s2cid=145390453}}</ref> which provided for equal treatment under the law. However, the judge presiding over his case, [[John Howard Ferguson]], ruled that Louisiana had the right to regulate railroad companies while they operated within state boundaries. Four days later, Plessy petitioned the [[Louisiana Supreme Court]] for a [[writ of prohibition]] to stop his criminal trial.<ref name=Opinion/>{{sfnp|Lofgren|1987|pp=42}}

===State appeal===
The Louisiana Supreme Court issued a temporary writ of prohibition while it reviewed Plessy's case. In December 1892, the court upheld Judge Ferguson's ruling,{{sfnp|Elliott|2006|p=270}} and denied Plessy's attorneys' subsequent request for a rehearing.{{sfnp|Lofgren|1987|p=43}}<ref>{{cite news |last1=Gates |first1=Henry Louis |title='Plessy v. Ferguson': Who Was Plessy? |url=https://www.pbs.org/wnet/african-americans-many-rivers-to-cross/history/plessy-v-ferguson-who-was-plessy/ |access-date=27 October 2021 |work=PBS}}</ref> In speaking for the court's decision that Ferguson's judgment did not violate the 14th Amendment, Louisiana Supreme Court Justice [[Charles Erasmus Fenner]] cited a number of precedents, including two key cases from Northern states. The Massachusetts Supreme Court had ruled in 1849—before the 14th amendment—that segregated schools were constitutional. In answering the charge that segregation perpetuated race prejudice, the Massachusetts court famously stated: "This prejudice, if it exists, is not created by law, and probably cannot be changed by law."<ref>''[[Sarah C. Roberts v. City of Boston]]'', 59 Massachusetts 198, 5 Cush. 198 (Massachusetts S.J.C. 1848).</ref> The law itself was repealed five years later, but the precedent stood.<ref name="JimCrowLaws-p30">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5q5yXP8AdNEC&pg=PA30|title=Jim Crow laws|last=Tischauser|first=Leslie V.|date=2012|publisher=Greenwood|location=Santa Barbara, California|isbn=978-0-313-38609-1|page=30}}</ref>

In a Pennsylvania law mandating separate railcars for different races the Pennsylvania Supreme Court stated: "To assert separateness is not to declare inferiority ... It is simply to say that following the order of Divine Providence, human authority ought not to compel these widely separated races to intermix."<ref>{{cite book|author=H. W. Brands|title=American Colossus: The Triumph of Capitalism 1865–1900|location=New York|publisher=Random House|date=2010|pages=463–464}}</ref><ref name="JimCrowLaws-p30"/>

===Supreme Court appeal===
Undaunted, the Committee appealed to the United States Supreme Court.<ref name="jstor1973"/> Two legal briefs were submitted on Plessy's behalf. One was signed by [[Albion W. Tourgée]] and James C. Walker and the other by [[Samuel F. Phillips]] and his legal partner F. D. McKenney. Oral arguments were held before the Supreme Court on April 13, 1896. Tourgée and Phillips appeared in the courtroom to speak on behalf of Plessy.<ref name=Opinion/>
Tourgée built his case upon violation of Plessy's rights under the [[Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|13th Amendment]], prohibiting slavery, and the [[Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|14th Amendment]], which states "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." Tourgée 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.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Gordon |first1=Milton M. |title=Enforcing Racial Segregation; It Is Viewed as Violating the Rights of All Americans |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1954/01/03/archives/enforcing-racial-segregation-it-is-viewed-as-violating-the-rights.html |work=The New York Times |date=3 January 1954 }}</ref> The state legal brief was prepared by [[Attorney General of Louisiana|Attorney General]] [[Milton Joseph Cunningham]] of [[Natchitoches, Louisiana|Natchitoches]] and New Orleans. Cunningham was a staunch supporter of [[white supremacy]], who according to a laudatory 1916 obituary "worked so effectively [during Reconstruction] in restoring white supremacy in politics that he finally was arrested, with fifty-one other men of that community, and tried by federal officials."<ref>{{cite news|title=Milton Joseph Cunningham, Obituary|work=Times Picayune|date=October 20, 1916}}, cited in {{cite web|url=http://www.genealogy.com/users/m/e/t/Mildred-Methvin/WEBSITE-0001/UHP-0108.html|title=Milton Joseph Cunningham|publisher=genealogy.com|author=Mimi Methvin McManus|date=May 29, 2003|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141006092257/http://www.genealogy.com/users/m/e/t/Mildred-Methvin/WEBSITE-0001/UHP-0108.html|archive-date=October 6, 2014|access-date=October 2, 2014}}</ref>

==Decision==
On May 18, 1896, the Supreme Court issued a 7–1{{efn|Due to the sudden death of his daughter, justice [[David J. Brewer]] left Washington shortly before oral arguments and did not participate in the decision.}} decision against Plessy that upheld the constitutionality of Louisiana's train car segregation laws.<ref name=plessy&ferg/>

===Opinion of the Court===
[[File:Portrait of Henry Billings Brown.jpg|thumb|upright|Justice Henry Billings Brown, author of the majority opinion in ''Plessy'']]
Seven justices formed the Court's majority and joined an opinion written by justice [[Henry Billings Brown]]. The Court first dismissed any claim that the Louisiana law violated the [[Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|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.{{sfnp|Nowak|Rotunda|2012|loc=§ 14.8, p. 818}}

Next, the Court considered whether the law violated the [[Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fourteenth Amendment]]{{'s}} [[Equal Protection Clause]], which reads: "nor shall any State ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." The Court said that although the Fourteenth Amendment was meant to guarantee the legal equality of all races in the United States, it was not intended to prevent social or other types of discrimination.{{sfnp|Nowak|Rotunda|2012|loc=§ 14.8, p. 818}}
{{Blockquote
|text=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.
|source=''Plessy'', 163 U.S. at 543–44.<ref>Quoted in {{harvp|Nowak|Rotunda|2012|loc=§ 14.8, p. 818}}.</ref> 
}}
The Court reasoned that laws requiring racial separation were within Louisiana's [[Police power (United States constitutional law)|police power]]: the core sovereign authority of U.S. states to pass laws on matters of "health, safety, and morals".{{sfnp|Nowak|Rotunda|2012|loc=§ 14.8, p. 818}} It held that as long as a law that classified and separated people by their race was a reasonable and good faith exercise of a state's police power and was not designed to oppress a particular class, the law did not violate the Equal Protection Clause.{{sfnp|Nowak|Rotunda|2012|loc=§ 14.8, p. 818}} According to the Court, the question in any case that involved a racial segregation law was whether the law was reasonable, and the Court gave State legislatures broad discretion to determine the reasonableness of the laws they passed.{{sfnp|Nowak|Rotunda|2012|loc=§ 14.8, p. 818}}

Plessy's lawyers had argued that segregation laws inherently implied that black people were inferior and stigmatized them with a second-class status that violated the Equal Protection Clause.{{sfnp|Chemerinsky|2019|loc=§&nbsp;9.3.1, p. 760}} But the Court rejected this argument.{{sfnp|Chemerinsky|2019|loc=§&nbsp;9.3.1, p. 761}}
{{Blockquote
|text=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.
|source=''Plessy'', 163 U.S. at 551.<ref>Quoted in {{harvp|Chemerinsky|2019|loc=§&nbsp;9.3.1, p. 761}}.</ref>
}}
The Court rejected the notion that the law marked black Americans with "a badge of inferiority", and said that racial prejudice could not be overcome by legislation.{{sfnp|Nowak|Rotunda|2012|loc=§ 14.8, p. 818}}

===Harlan's dissent===
[[File:JudgeJMHarlan.jpg|thumb|upright=0.85|Justice John Marshall Harlan became known as the "Great Dissenter" for his fiery dissent in ''Plessy'' and other early civil rights cases.]]
Justice [[John Marshall Harlan]] was the lone dissenter from the Court's decision. Harlan strongly disagreed with the Court's conclusion that the Louisiana railcar law did not imply that black people were inferior, and he accused the majority of being willfully ignorant on the issue.
{{Blockquote
|text=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. ... The thing to accomplish was, under the guise of giving equal accommodation for whites and blacks, to compel the latter to keep to themselves while traveling in railroad passenger coaches. No one would be so wanting in candor as to assert the contrary.
|source=''Plessy'', 163 U.S. at 557 (Harlan, J., dissenting).<ref name="ReferenceA">Quoted in part in {{harvp|Chemerinsky|2019|loc=§&nbsp;9.3.1, p. 761}}.</ref>
}}
To support his argument, Harlan pointed out that the Louisiana law had an exception for "nurses attending children of the other race". This exception allowed black women who were [[nanny|nannies]] to white children to be in the white-only train cars.{{sfnp|Amar|2011|p=85}} Harlan said that this showed that the Louisiana law allowed black people to be in white-only cars only if it was obvious that they were "social subordinates" or "domestics".{{sfnp|Amar|2011|p=85}}

In a now-famous passage, 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.{{sfnp|Chemerinsky|2019|loc=§&nbsp;9.3.1, p. 761}} 
{{Blockquote
|text=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.
|source=''Plessy'', 163 U.S. at 559 (Harlan, J., dissenting).<ref name="ReferenceA">Quoted in part in {{harvp|Chemerinsky|2019|loc=§&nbsp;9.3.1, p. 761}}.</ref>
}}
Harlan predicted the Court's decision would eventually become as infamous as its 1857 decision ''[[Dred Scott v. Sandford]]'', in which the Court had ruled that black Americans could not be citizens under the U.S. Constitution and that its legal protections and privileges could never apply to them.

==Aftermath==
After the Supreme Court ruling, Plessy's criminal trial went ahead in Ferguson's court in Louisiana on February 11, 1897.{{sfnp|Lofgren|1987|p=208}} Plessy changed his plea to "guilty" of violating the Separate Car Act, which carried a $25 fine or 20 days in jail. He opted to pay the fine.<ref>{{Harvnb|Fireside|2004|p=229}}</ref> The Comité des Citoyens disbanded shortly after the trial's end.<ref>{{Harvnb|Elliott|2006|p=294}}</ref>

==Significance==
[[File:Negro drinking at "Colored" water cooler in streetcar terminal, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma by Russell Lee.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|An [[Oklahoma City]] streetcar terminal's "colored" drinking fountain, 1939<ref>{{cite web|last=Lee|first=Russell|title=Negro drinking at "Colored" water cooler in streetcar terminal, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma|work=Prints & Photographs Online Catalog|publisher=[[Library of Congress]] Home|date=July 1939|url=https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/fsa1997026728/PP/|access-date=March 23, 2005}}</ref>]]''Plessy'' legitimized state laws establishing "racial" segregation in the [[Southern United States|South]] and provided an impetus for further segregation laws. It also legitimized laws in the North requiring "racial" segregation, such as in the Boston school segregation case noted by Justice Brown in his majority opinion.<ref>{{cite book|last=Brands|first=H. W.|title=American Colossus|location=New York|publisher=Anchor Books|date=2010|page=466}}</ref> Legislative achievements won during the [[Reconstruction Era]] were erased through means of the "separate but equal" doctrine.<ref>{{cite magazine|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1954/07/segregation-and-the-supreme-court/6055|title=Segregation and the Supreme Court|last=Sutherland| first=Arthur E. Jr. |author-link=Arthur E. Sutherland Jr.|magazine=The Atlantic Monthly|date=July 1954}}</ref> The doctrine had been strengthened also by an 1875 Supreme Court decision that limited the federal government's ability to intervene in state affairs, guaranteeing to Congress only the power "to restrain states from acts of racial discrimination and segregation".<ref name="oldfield">{{cite journal |last1=Oldfield |first1=John |title=State politics, railroads, and Civil Rights in South Carolina, 1883–89 |journal=American Nineteenth Century History |date=January 2004 |volume=5 |issue=2 |pages=71–91 |doi=10.1080/1466465042000257864 |s2cid=144234514 }}</ref> The ruling basically granted states legislative immunity when dealing with questions of "race", guaranteeing the states' right to implement racially separate institutions, requiring them only to be equal.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.americanhistory.si.edu/brown/history/1-segregated/separate-but-equal.html|title=Separate But Equal: The Law of the Land|publisher=Smithsonian National Museum of American History Behring Center}}</ref>

[[File:JimCrowCar2.jpg|left|upright=1.2|thumb|1904 caricature of "White" and "[[Jim Crow]]" rail cars by [[John T. McCutcheon]]]]Despite the pretense of "separate but equal", non-whites essentially always received inferior facilities and treatment, if they received them at all.<ref>{{cite book|last=McCutheon|first=John |title=The Mysterious Stranger and Other Cartoons|publisher=McClure, Phillips & Co.|date=1905}}</ref>{{page needed|date=May 2021}}
The prospect of greater state influence in matters of race worried numerous advocates of civil equality, including Supreme Court Justice John Harlan, who wrote in his ''Plessy'' dissent, "we shall enter upon an era of constitutional law, when the rights of freedom and American citizenship cannot receive from the nation that efficient protection which heretofore was unhesitatingly accorded to slavery and the rights of the master."<ref name="oldfield"/> Harlan's concerns about the encroachment on the 14th Amendment would prove well-founded; states proceeded to institute segregation-based laws that became known as the [[Jim Crow laws|Jim Crow system]].<ref>{{cite news |last1=Krock |first1=Arthur |title=In The Nation; An Historic Day in the Supreme Court |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1950/06/06/archives/in-the-nation-an-historic-day-in-the-supreme-court.html |work=The New York Times |date=6 June 1950 }}</ref> In addition, from 1890 to 1908, Southern states passed new or amended constitutions including provisions that effectively [[Disfranchisement after Reconstruction era|disenfranchised]] blacks and thousands of poor whites.

Some commentators, such as [[Gabriel J. Chin]]{{sfn|Chin|1996}} and Eric Maltz,<ref name="Maltz">{{cite journal|last=Maltz|first=Eric|title=Only Partially Color-Blind: John Marshall Harlan's View of Race and the Constitution|journal=Georgia State L. Rev.|date=1996|volume=12|page=973}}</ref> have viewed Harlan's ''Plessy'' dissent in a more critical light, and suggested it be viewed in context with his other decisions.{{sfn|Chin|1996}} Maltz has argued that "modern commentators have often overstated Harlan's distaste for race-based classifications", pointing to other aspects of decisions in which Harlan was involved.{{sfn|Maltz|1996|p=1015}} Both point to a passage of Harlan's ''Plessy'' dissent as particularly troubling:{{sfn|Chin|1996|p=156}}{{sfn|Maltz|1996|p=1002}} <blockquote>There is a race so different from our own that we do not permit those belonging to it to become citizens of the United States. Persons belonging to it are, with few exceptions, absolutely excluded from our country. I allude to the Chinese race. But, by the statute in question, a Chinaman can ride in the same passenger coach with white citizens of the United States, while citizens of the black race in Louisiana, many of whom, perhaps, risked their lives for the preservation of the Union{{nbsp}}... and who have all the legal rights that belong to white citizens, are yet declared to be criminals, liable to imprisonment, if they ride in a public coach occupied by citizens of the white race.<ref name="justia">{{cite web|url=http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/163/537/case.html|title=Plessy v. Ferguson – 163 U.S. 537 (1896) :: Justia US Supreme Court Center|publisher=Supreme.justia.com|access-date=December 22, 2012}}</ref></blockquote>

New Orleans historian Keith Weldon Medley, author of ''We As Freemen: Plessy v. Ferguson, The Fight Against Legal Segregation'', said the words in Justice Harlan's "Great Dissent" were taken from papers filed with the court by "The Citizen's Committee".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.wwltv.com/video/news-index.html?nvid=330530|title=Civil rights pioneer celebrated with marker|date=February 10, 2009|format=Flash|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090221103101/http://www.wwltv.com/video/news-index.html?nvid=330530|archive-date=February 21, 2009}}</ref>

The effect of the ''Plessy'' ruling was immediate; there were already significant differences in funding for the segregated school system, which continued into the 20th century; states consistently underfunded black schools, providing them with substandard buildings, textbooks, and supplies. States which had successfully integrated elements of their society abruptly adopted oppressive legislation that erased reconstruction era efforts.<ref name="0-lib.myilibrary.com.mercury.concordia.ca">{{cite book|url=http://0-lib.myilibrary.com.mercury.concordia.ca/Browse/open.asp?ID=56001&loc=19|title=From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality|last=Klarman|first=Michael J.|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2004|access-date=February 1, 2010|url-access=registration}}</ref>{{rp|16–18}} The principles of ''Plessy v. Ferguson'' were affirmed in ''[[Lum v. Rice]]'' (1927), which upheld the right of a [[Mississippi]] public school for white children to exclude a [[Chinese American]] girl. Despite the laws enforcing [[compulsory education]], and the lack of public schools for Chinese children in Lum's area, the Supreme Court ruled that she had the choice to attend a [[private school]].<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of African American Education|title=Gong Lum v. Rice|first=Aama|last=Nahuja|volume=1|editor1-first=Kofi|editor1-last=Lomotey|publisher=SAGE|year=2009|page=291}}</ref> Jim Crow laws and practices spread northward in response to a second wave of African-American migration from the South to northern and midwestern cities. Some established [[de jure]] segregated educational facilities, separate public institutions such as hotels and restaurants, separate beaches among other public facilities, and restrictions on interracial marriage, but in other cases segregation in the North was related to unstated practices and operated on a [[de facto]] basis, although not by law, among numerous other facets of daily life.<ref name="0-lib.myilibrary.com.mercury.concordia.ca"/>{{rp|6}}

The separate facilities and institutions accorded to the African-American community were consistently inferior<ref>{{cite news |last1=White |first1=Walter |title=Decision in Plessy Case |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1954/03/10/archives/decision-in-plessy-case.html |work=The New York Times |date=10 March 1954 }}</ref> to those provided to the White community. This contradicted the vague declaration of "separate but equal" issued after the ''Plessy'' decision.<ref>{{cite journal |id={{ProQuest|222201716}} |last=Darden |first=Gary Helm |date=2009 |title=The New Empire in the 'New South': Jim Crow in the Global Frontier of High Imperialism and Decolonization |journal=Southern Quarterly |volume=46 |number=3 |pages=8–25 }}</ref> Since no state wrote the "separate but equal" doctrine into a statute, there was no remedy, other than going back to the U.S. Supreme Court, if the separate facilities were not equal, and states faced no consequences if they underfunded services and facilities for non-whites.{{citation needed|date=May 2021}}

From 1890 to 1908, state legislatures in the South disenfranchised most blacks and many poor whites through rejecting them for voter registration and voting: making voter registration more difficult by providing more detailed records, such as proof of land ownership or [[literacy tests]] administered by white staff at poll stations. African-American community leaders, who had achieved brief political success during the Reconstruction era and even into the 1880s, lost gains made when their voters were excluded from the political system. Historian Rogers Smith noted on the subject that "lawmakers frequently admitted, indeed boasted, that such measures as complex registration rules, literacy and property tests, [[Poll tax (United States)|poll taxes]], [[white primaries]], and [[grandfather clauses]] were designed to produce an electorate confined to a white race that declared itself supreme", notably rejecting the 14th and 15th Amendments to the American Constitution.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Mcwilliams |first1=Wilson Carey |title=On Rogers Smith's Civic Ideals |journal=Studies in American Political Development |date=1999 |volume=13 |issue=1 |pages=216–229 |doi=10.1017/S0898588X9900200X |s2cid=143449197 }}</ref>

In ''[[Brown v. Board of Education]]'' (1954), the US Supreme Court ruled that segregation in public education was unconstitutional.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/347/483|title=Brown v. Board of Education|work=cornell.edu}}</ref> While ''Plessy v. Ferguson'' was never explicitly overruled by the Supreme Court, it is effectively dead as a precedent;<ref>{{cite web|last=Amar|first=Akhil Reed|title=Anthony Kennedy and the Ghost of Earl Warren|website=slate.com|publisher=Slate Magazine|date=July 6, 2015|url=http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2015/07/06/obergefell_v_hodges_anthony_kennedy_continues_the_legacy_of_earl_warren.html|access-date=July 22, 2015}}</ref> the [[Interstate Commerce Commission]] ruled that segregation on interstate transport violated the [[Interstate Commerce Act of 1887|Interstate Commerce Act]] in the 1955 case ''[[Keys v. Carolina Coach Co.|Keys v. Carolina Coach Co]]''. The [[Civil Rights Act of 1964]] prohibited legal segregation and the [[Voting Rights Act]] of 1965 provided for federal oversight and enforcement of voter registration and voting.{{citation needed|date=May 2021}}

===Plessy and Ferguson Foundation===
In 2009, Keith Plessy and Phoebe Ferguson, descendants of participants on both sides of the 1896 Supreme Court case, announced the establishment of the Plessy and Ferguson Foundation for Education and Reconciliation. The foundation would work to create new ways to teach the history of civil rights through film, art, and public programs designed to create understanding of this historic case and its effect on the American conscience.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.nocca.com/newsevents/newsletter.php?newsletter_ID=188|title=A Celebration of Progress: Unveiling the long-awaited historical marker for the arrest site of Homer Plessy|publisher=New Orleans Center for Creative Arts|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090221095135/http://www.nocca.com/newsevents/newsletter.php?newsletter_ID=188|archive-date=February 21, 2009}}</ref>

In 2009, a marker was placed<ref name=plessy&ferg>{{cite news|url=http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2009/02/plessy_vs_ferguson_photo.html|title=Plessy and Ferguson unveil plaque today marking their ancestors' actions|last=Reckdahl|first=Katy|newspaper=[[The Times-Picayune]]|date=February 11, 2009}}</ref> at the corner of Press and Royal streets in New Orleans, where Plessy had been removed from his train.<ref name="plaque-dedicated">{{cite web|url=http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wwno/news.newsmain?action=article&ARTICLE_ID=1468970|title=Plessy/Ferguson plaque dedicated|last=Abrams|first=Eve|date=February 12, 2009|access-date=January 14, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120129224157/http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wwno/news.newsmain?action=article&ARTICLE_ID=1468970|archive-date=January 29, 2012}}</ref>
{{Clear}}

===Pardon===
In 2021, the Louisiana Board of Pardons unanimously approved a posthumous pardon of Plessy, sending it to Governor [[John Bel Edwards]] for final approval.<ref>{{cite news
|title=Louisiana board votes to pardon Homer Plessy of Plessy v. Ferguson
|newspaper=[[Washington Post]]
|date=Nov 12, 2021
|first=Gillian
|last=Brockell
|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/11/12/homer-plessy-pardon-ferguson-louisiana/}}</ref> Edwards granted the pardon on January 5, 2022.<ref>{{Cite web|author=Tina Burnside|title=Homer Plessy, of Plessy v. Ferguson's 'separate but equal' ruling, pardoned by Louisiana|url=https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/05/us/plessy-pardon-signed-by-governor/index.html|access-date=2022-01-05|website=CNN|date=January 5, 2022 }}</ref>

==See also==
* [[Anticanon]]
* [[List of United States court cases involving the Fourteenth Amendment]]
* ''[[Loving v. Virginia]]''
* [[United States constitutional law]]

==References==
===Footnotes===
{{notelist}}

===Citations===
{{Reflist}}

===Works cited===
{{refbegin|35em}}
*{{cite journal|first=T. Alexander|last=Aleinikoff|title=Re-Reading Justice Harlan's Dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson: Freedom, Antiracism, and Citizenship|journal=University of Illinois Law Review|year=1992|issue=4|pages=961–78}}
*{{cite journal|first=Akhil Reed|last=Amar|author-link=Akhil Amar|title=''Plessy v. Ferguson'' and the Anti-Canon|journal=Pepperdine Law Review|year=2011|volume=39|number=1|pages=75–90|url=https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=4706&context=fss_papers}}
*{{cite book|first=Erwin|last=Chemerinsky|author-link=Erwin Chemerinsky|title=The Case Against the Supreme Court|location=New York|publisher=Penguin Books|year=2014|isbn=978-0-14-312800-7}}
*{{cite book|first=Erwin|last=Chemerinsky|title=Constitutional Law: Principles and Policies|edition=6th|location=New York|publisher=Wolters Kluwer|year=2019|isbn=978-1-4548-9574-9}}
*{{cite journal|last=Chin|first=Gabriel J.|year=1996|title=The ''Plessy'' Myth: Justice Harlan and the Chinese Cases|journal=Iowa Law Review|volume=82|pages=151–182|ssrn=1121505|doi=10.17077/0021-065X.4551|doi-access=free}}
*{{cite book|title=Color-Blind Justice: Albion Tourgée and the Quest for Racial Equality from the Civil War to ''Plessy v. Ferguson''|last=Elliott|first=Mark|year=2006|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=New York|isbn=0-19-518139-5|url=https://archive.org/details/colorblindjustic00elli}}
*{{cite book|first=Richard A.|last=Epstein|author-link=Richard Epstein|title=Forbidden Grounds: The Case Against Employment Discrimination Laws|location=Cambridge, Massachusetts|publisher=Harvard University Press|year=1995|isbn=0-6743-0809-3}}
*{{cite book|title=Separate and Unequal: Homer Plessy and the Supreme Court Decision That Legalized Racism|last=Fireside|first=Harvey|year=2004|publisher=Carroll & Graf|location=New York|isbn=0-7867-1293-7}}
*{{cite journal|first=Edward J.|last=Larson|title=Anti-Canonical Considerations|journal=Pepperdine Law Review|year=2011|volume=39|issue=1|pages=1–12|url=https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/plr/vol39/iss1/1/}}
*{{cite book|title=The Plessy Case: A Legal-Historical Interpretation|last=Lofgren|first=Charles A.|year=1987|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=New York|isbn=978-0-19-505684-6}}
*{{cite book|title=We As Freemen: Plessy v. Ferguson|last=Medley|first=Keith Weldon|year=2003|publisher=Pelican|location=Gretna LA|isbn=1-58980-120-2|url=https://archive.org/details/weasfreemenpless00medl}} [https://web.archive.org/web/20070808091642/http://www.bsos.umd.edu/gvpt/lpbr/subpages/reviews/Medley1003.htm Review]
*{{cite book|first1=John E.|last1=Nowak|first2=Ronald D.|last2=Rotunda|title=Treatise on Constitutional Law: Substance and Procedure|year=2012|location=Eagan, Minnesota|publisher=West Thomson/Reuters|edition=5th|oclc=798148265}}
*{{cite journal|last1=Schauer|first1=Frederick|author-link=Frederick Schauer|title=Generality and Equality|journal=Law and Philosophy|date=1997|volume=16|issue=3|pages=279–97|doi=10.2307/3504874|jstor=3504874|doi-access=free}}
*{{cite book|title=Plessy v. Ferguson: A Brief History with Documents|last=Thomas|first=Brook|year=1997|publisher=Bedford Books|location=Boston|isbn=978-0-312-14997-0}}
*{{cite book|title=I Dissent: Great Opposing Opinions in Landmark Supreme Court Cases|last=Tushnet|first=Mark|year=2008|publisher=Beacon Press|location=Boston|isbn=978-0-8070-0036-6|pages=69–80}}
{{refend}}

==External links==
{{Commons category}}
* {{Wikisource-inline|Plessy v. Ferguson|''Plessy v. Ferguson''}}
* {{Caselaw source|case=''Plessy v. Ferguson'', {{ussc|163|537|1896|el=no}}|cornell=https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/163/537|courtlistener=https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/94508/plessy-v-ferguson/|findlaw=https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/163/537.html|googlescholar=https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=16038751515555215717|justia=https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/163/537/|loc=http://cdn.loc.gov/service/ll/usrep/usrep163/usrep163537/usrep163537.pdf}}
* ''[https://guides.loc.gov/plessy-ferguson Plessy v. Ferguson]'' from the Library of Congress
* [https://www.plessyandferguson.org/ Plessy & Ferguson Foundation]
* [http://landmarkcases.c-span.org/Case/19/Plessy-v-Ferguson ''Plessy v. Ferguson''] from [[C-SPAN]]'s ''[[Landmark Cases: Historic Supreme Court Decisions]]''
* [https://www.newspapers.com/topics/reconstruction/plessy-v-ferguson/ Newspaper articles and clippings about ''Plessy v. Ferguson'' at Newspapers.com]
* [https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/the-road-to-separate-but-equal.htm#:~:text=The%20rights%20stated%20in%20the%20Fourteenth%20Amendment%20have,as%20long%20as%20it%20was%20%E2%80%9Cseparate%20but%20equal.%E2%80%9D/ ''The Road to 'Separate But Equal'''] from the [[National Park Service]]
* [https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/plessy-v-ferguson/ Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)] from the [[National Archives and Records Administration]]

{{Civil rights movement}}
{{US14thAmendment}}
{{African American topics}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Plessy V. Ferguson}}
[[Category:African-American history between emancipation and the civil rights movement]]
[[Category:History of racial segregation in the United States]]
[[Category:Legal history of Louisiana]]
[[Category:Passenger rail transportation in Louisiana]]
[[Category:United States equal protection case law]]
[[Category:United States Supreme Court cases of the Fuller Court]]
[[Category:Overruled United States Supreme Court decisions]]
[[Category:United States Supreme Court cases in 1896]]
[[Category:1896 in Louisiana]]
[[Category:Civil rights movement case law]]
[[Category:African-American Catholicism]]
[[Category:Race-related case law in the United States]]
[[Category:United States racial discrimination case law]]
[[Category:United States Supreme Court cases]]