Plessy v. Ferguson was the United States Supreme Court decision, issued on May 18, 1896, that upheld a Louisiana law requiring racially segregated railroad cars and created the “separate but equal” doctrine that legalized segregation across American public life for the next 58 years.1Justia. Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896) The vote was seven to one. Justice Henry Billings Brown wrote for the majority; Justice John Marshall Harlan dissented alone.
How the Case Started
On June 7, 1892, Homer Plessy boarded an East Louisiana Railroad train in New Orleans and sat in the whites-only car. The arrest that followed was planned. A New Orleans civil rights group, the Comité des Citoyens, had recruited Plessy to test the Louisiana Separate Car Act of 1890 and had coordinated with the railroad in advance. Plessy was seven-eighths white and one-eighth Black, and he appeared white to most observers, which sharpened the test of how the law actually classified people.1Justia. Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896)
When Plessy refused to move to the car assigned to Black passengers, a detective arrested him and he was charged with violating the Separate Car Act. Judge John Howard Ferguson of the Criminal District Court for the Parish of Orleans rejected Plessy’s Fourteenth Amendment challenge, and the Louisiana Supreme Court affirmed that ruling in January 1893. The state court then granted a writ of error, sending the case to Washington.2National Archives. Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
What the Supreme Court Decided
The case was argued on April 13, 1896, and decided five weeks later on May 18, cited as 163 U.S. 537.1Justia. Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896)3GovInfo. Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896) Plessy’s attorneys argued that the Separate Car Act violated the Thirteenth Amendment by imposing a badge of servitude on Black passengers and violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection guarantee by drawing legal lines based solely on race.
Justice Brown’s majority opinion rejected both claims. A law distinguishing between races, he wrote, did not amount to involuntary servitude. The Fourteenth Amendment enforced legal equality but could not erase social distinctions, and if Black passengers felt degraded by segregation, that feeling came from their own interpretation rather than anything the law imposed. The Court treated mandatory segregation as a neutral regulatory choice, and the phrase that grew out of that reasoning, “separate but equal,” would govern American race law for the next half century.
Justice Harlan’s Dissent
Justice Harlan wrote alone in dissent. He argued that the Constitution is “color-blind” and that government had no legitimate business classifying citizens by race. He compared the majority’s reasoning to the Court’s pre-Civil War decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford and predicted the ruling would encourage states to pass more aggressive segregation laws.1Justia. Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896) That prediction held.
What the Ruling Made Possible
The decision gave legal cover to segregation far beyond railroad cars. Within three years, in Cumming v. Richmond County Board of Education (1899), the Court allowed a Georgia school board to close a Black high school for financial reasons while keeping a white high school open, treating education as a state matter and finding no bad faith.4Justia. Cumming v. Richmond County Board of Education, 175 U.S. 528 (1899) In practice, “separate but equal” meant separate and rarely equal. States funded white facilities generously and Black ones poorly, and federal courts seldom stepped in.
How Plessy Was Overturned
The doctrine lasted 58 years. On May 17, 1954, a unanimous Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka that segregated public schools were “inherently unequal” and that the doctrine announced in Plessy had “no place in the field of public education.”5Justia. Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954) Brown dismantled the legal foundation, though enforcement took years.
A decade later, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibited racial segregation in hotels, restaurants, theaters, and other public accommodations nationwide.6Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 U.S. Code 2000a – Prohibition Against Discrimination or Segregation in Places of Public Accommodation Between Brown and the Civil Rights Act, the legal regime that began on May 18, 1896 was brought to an end.
The 2022 Posthumous Pardon
On January 5, 2022, Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards granted Homer Plessy a posthumous pardon for his 1892 conviction, the first issued under Louisiana’s 2006 Avery Alexander Act, which permits pardons for people convicted under discriminatory laws. Keith Plessy, a descendant of Homer, and Phoebe Ferguson, a descendant of Judge Ferguson, had both advocated for it. Phoebe Ferguson said the purpose was “not to erase what happened 125 years ago but to acknowledge the wrong that was done.”