Petitioner
Homer A. Plessy
Respondent
J. H. Ferguson, New Orleans Criminal District Court Judge
Petitioner's Claim
That Louisiana's law requiring blacks to ride in separate railroad cars violated Plessy's right to equal protection under the law.
Chief Lawyers for Petitioner
F. D. McKenney, S. F. Phillips
Chief Lawyer for Respondent
M. J. Cunningham, Louisiana Attorney General
Justices for the Court
Henry Billings Brown (writing for the Court), Stephen Johnson Field, MelvilleWeston Fuller, Horace Gray, Rufus Wheeler Peckham, George Shiras, Jr., Edward Douglass White
Justices Dissenting
John Marshall Harlan I (David Josiah Brewer did not participate)
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
18 May 1896
Decision
That laws providing for "separate but equal" treatment of blacks and whites were constitutional.
Significance
The Supreme Court's decision effectively sanctioned discriminatory state legislation. Plessy was not fully overruled until the 1950s and 1960s, beginning with Brown v. Board of Education in 1954.
In the years following the Supreme Court's 1875 decision in United Statesv. Cruikshank, which limited the federal government's ability to protectAfrican Americans' civil rights, many states in the South and elsewhere enacted laws discriminating against African Americans. These laws ranged from restrictions on voting, such as literacy tests and the poll tax, to requirementsthat blacks and whites attend separate schools and use separate public facilities.
On 7 June 1892, Homer A. Plessy bought a train ticket for travel from New Orleans to Covington, Louisiana. Plessy's ancestry was one-eighth black and therest white, but under Louisiana law he was considered to be black and was required to ride in the blacks-only railroad car. Plessy sat in the whites-onlyrailroad car, refused to move, and was promptly arrested and thrown into theNew Orleans jail.
Judge John H. Ferguson of the District Court of Orleans Parish presided overPlessy's trial for the crime of having refused to leave the whites-only car,and Plessy was found guilty. Plessy's conviction was upheld by the LouisianaSupreme Court, and Plessy appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court for an order forbidding Louisiana in the person of Judge Ferguson from carrying out the conviction.
Ferguson was represented by Louisiana Attorney General M. J. Cunningham and Plessy by F. D. McKenney and S. F. Phillips. On 13 April 1896, Plessy's lawyers argued before the Supreme Court that Louisiana had violated Plessy's Fourteenth Amendment right to equal protection under the law. Attorney General Cunningham argued that the law merely made a distinction between blacks and whites, but did not necessarily treat blacks as inferiors, since theoretically thelaw provided for "separate but equal" railroad car accommodations.
On 18 May 1896, the Court issued its decision. It upheld the Louisiana law:
Therefore, the Court affirmed Plessy's sentence, namely a $25 fine or 20 daysin jail. Further, the Court endorsed the "separate but equal" doctrine, ignoring the fact that blacks had practically no power to make sure that their "separate" facilities were really "equal" to those of whites. In the years to come, black railroad cars, schools and other facilities were rarely as good asthose of whites. Only Justice Harlan dissented from the Court's decision. Harlan's dissent was an uncannily accurate prediction of Plessy's effect:
It was not until the 1950s and the 1960s that the Supreme Court began to reverse Plessy. In the landmark 1954 case of Brown v. Board of Education, the Court held that separate black and white schools were unconstitutional, and later cases abolished the separate but equal doctrine in other areas affecting civil rights as well.
Related Cases
"Separate But Equal"
The "separate but equal" standard established by the Supreme Court in Plessy has become more or less synonymous with institutionalized racial segregation. According to the "separate but equal" doctrine, if a state could prove that blacks enjoyed accommodations equal to those for whites, that state could legally sanction segregated schools and other public facilities, as was the case in most of the South.
The very fact that facilities were separate meant that they were inherently unequal, since the whole purpose of the so-called Jim Crow Laws in the South was to keep black people out of the places enjoyed by whites. But beyond thislogical fallacy, in practice the facilities were simply unequal: thus for instance most black schools were housed in sub-standard buildings, and African American students used outdated textbooks. With Sweatt v. Painter (1950), when a token law school for blacks was ruled unequal to facilities for whites, the Court indicated its willingness to overturn the separate but equal principle, as it would do four years later in Brown.
Sources
Bradley, David and Shelley Fisher Fishkin eds. The Encyclopedia of Civil Rights in America. Armonk, NY: Sharpe, 1998.
Homer A. Plessy
Respondent
J. H. Ferguson, New Orleans Criminal District Court Judge
Petitioner's Claim
That Louisiana's law requiring blacks to ride in separate railroad cars violated Plessy's right to equal protection under the law.
Chief Lawyers for Petitioner
F. D. McKenney, S. F. Phillips
Chief Lawyer for Respondent
M. J. Cunningham, Louisiana Attorney General
Justices for the Court
Henry Billings Brown (writing for the Court), Stephen Johnson Field, MelvilleWeston Fuller, Horace Gray, Rufus Wheeler Peckham, George Shiras, Jr., Edward Douglass White
Justices Dissenting
John Marshall Harlan I (David Josiah Brewer did not participate)
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
18 May 1896
Decision
That laws providing for "separate but equal" treatment of blacks and whites were constitutional.
Significance
The Supreme Court's decision effectively sanctioned discriminatory state legislation. Plessy was not fully overruled until the 1950s and 1960s, beginning with Brown v. Board of Education in 1954.
In the years following the Supreme Court's 1875 decision in United Statesv. Cruikshank, which limited the federal government's ability to protectAfrican Americans' civil rights, many states in the South and elsewhere enacted laws discriminating against African Americans. These laws ranged from restrictions on voting, such as literacy tests and the poll tax, to requirementsthat blacks and whites attend separate schools and use separate public facilities.
On 7 June 1892, Homer A. Plessy bought a train ticket for travel from New Orleans to Covington, Louisiana. Plessy's ancestry was one-eighth black and therest white, but under Louisiana law he was considered to be black and was required to ride in the blacks-only railroad car. Plessy sat in the whites-onlyrailroad car, refused to move, and was promptly arrested and thrown into theNew Orleans jail.
Judge John H. Ferguson of the District Court of Orleans Parish presided overPlessy's trial for the crime of having refused to leave the whites-only car,and Plessy was found guilty. Plessy's conviction was upheld by the LouisianaSupreme Court, and Plessy appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court for an order forbidding Louisiana in the person of Judge Ferguson from carrying out the conviction.
Ferguson was represented by Louisiana Attorney General M. J. Cunningham and Plessy by F. D. McKenney and S. F. Phillips. On 13 April 1896, Plessy's lawyers argued before the Supreme Court that Louisiana had violated Plessy's Fourteenth Amendment right to equal protection under the law. Attorney General Cunningham argued that the law merely made a distinction between blacks and whites, but did not necessarily treat blacks as inferiors, since theoretically thelaw provided for "separate but equal" railroad car accommodations.
On 18 May 1896, the Court issued its decision. It upheld the Louisiana law:
A statute which implies merely a legal distinction between the white and colored races--a distinction which is found in the color of the two races, and which must always exist so long as white men are distinguished from the other race by color--has no tendency to destroy the legal equality of thetwo races.
Therefore, the Court affirmed Plessy's sentence, namely a $25 fine or 20 daysin jail. Further, the Court endorsed the "separate but equal" doctrine, ignoring the fact that blacks had practically no power to make sure that their "separate" facilities were really "equal" to those of whites. In the years to come, black railroad cars, schools and other facilities were rarely as good asthose of whites. Only Justice Harlan dissented from the Court's decision. Harlan's dissent was an uncannily accurate prediction of Plessy's effect:
Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor toleratesclasses among citizens . . . In my opinion, the judgment this day rendered will, in time, prove to be quite as pernicious as the decision made by this tribunal in the Dred Scott case . . . The present decision, it may wellbe apprehended, will not only stimulate aggressions, more or less brutal andirritating, upon the admitted rights of colored citizens, but will encouragethe belief that it is possible, by means of state enactments, to defeat the beneficent purposes by which the people of the United States had in view whenthey adopted the recent amendments of the Constitution
It was not until the 1950s and the 1960s that the Supreme Court began to reverse Plessy. In the landmark 1954 case of Brown v. Board of Education, the Court held that separate black and white schools were unconstitutional, and later cases abolished the separate but equal doctrine in other areas affecting civil rights as well.
Related Cases
- Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U.S. 303 (1879).
- Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3 (1883).
- Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356 (1886).
- Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada, 305 U.S. 337 (1938).
- Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954).
"Separate But Equal"
The "separate but equal" standard established by the Supreme Court in Plessy has become more or less synonymous with institutionalized racial segregation. According to the "separate but equal" doctrine, if a state could prove that blacks enjoyed accommodations equal to those for whites, that state could legally sanction segregated schools and other public facilities, as was the case in most of the South.
The very fact that facilities were separate meant that they were inherently unequal, since the whole purpose of the so-called Jim Crow Laws in the South was to keep black people out of the places enjoyed by whites. But beyond thislogical fallacy, in practice the facilities were simply unequal: thus for instance most black schools were housed in sub-standard buildings, and African American students used outdated textbooks. With Sweatt v. Painter (1950), when a token law school for blacks was ruled unequal to facilities for whites, the Court indicated its willingness to overturn the separate but equal principle, as it would do four years later in Brown.
Sources
Bradley, David and Shelley Fisher Fishkin eds. The Encyclopedia of Civil Rights in America. Armonk, NY: Sharpe, 1998.
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