Significance: This case firmly reinforced the legality of racial segregation by holding that separate facilities for different races were legal as long as those facilities were equal to one another. This case gave legal justification for racial segregation for more than 50 years until it was overturned by Brown v. Board of Education in 1954.
Background: An 1890 Louisiana law required all railway companies in the state to provide “separate but equal” railcars for white and African American passengers. The law also required passengers to sit only in the cars to which they were assigned. A group of citizens in New Orleans banded together to challenge the law and chose Homer Plessy, a man of mixed race but classified as “colored,” to test the law in 1892. Plessy took a seat in a white-only coach, and when he refused to move to the colored-only section, he was arrested. Plessy attempted to stop the trial by suing John H. Ferguson, the judge in his case, claiming that the Louisiana law was unconstitutional because it violated his Fourteenth Amendment right to equal protection. When Louisiana authorities rejected Plessy’s argument, Plessy sought review by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Decision: This case was argued on April 13, 1896, and decided on May 18, 1896, by a vote of 7 to 1. Justice David Brewer did not participate. Justice Henry Billings Brown spoke for the Court, which upheld the Louisiana law as constitutional. Justice John Harlan dissented, arguing that the Constitution should not be interpreted in ways that recognize class or racial distinctions.
Excerpt from the Opinion of the Court: “[W]e cannot say that a law which authorizes or even requires the separation of the two races in public conveyances [vehicles] is unreasonable, or more obnoxious [objectionable] to the Fourteenth Amendment than the acts of Congress requiring separate schools for colored children in the District of Columbia, the constitutionality of which does not seem to have been questioned, or the corresponding acts of state legislatures.”
