Plessy, Homer (1863-1925), was the key figure in a landmark 1896 court case concerning racial segregation in the United States. In Plessy v. Ferguson, the U.S. Supreme Court established the “separate but equal” doctrine for Black and white people in public facilities.
Homer Adolph Plessy was probably born in New Orleans on March 17, 1863. His birth name was Homère Patris Plessy. Homer was young when his father, Adolphe, died. He later took his father’s name as his middle name. He also changed his name from a French spelling to an English one. Homer was light-skinned and of mixed heritage. Both of his grandfathers were French, and both of his grandmothers were of mixed African and European ancestry. Historians know little about Plessy’s early life. He worked as a shoemaker. He was also active in local affairs.
A Louisiana law passed in 1890 required facilities for Black and white passengers in railroad cars to be “separate but equal.” In 1892, Plessy boarded a train to challenge the law. The Citizens’ Committee to Test the Constitutionality of the Separate Car Law, an African American activist group, supported him. Plessy hoped to be arrested so he could challenge the law in court.
Upon entering the train, Plessy sat in a “whites only” car. In much of the United States, a so-called “one-drop rule” meant that anyone with a drop of “Black blood”—with any African ancestry—was considered Black. Officials asked Plessy to move to a carriage reserved for Black passengers. He refused and was arrested.
In criminal district court, Judge John H. Ferguson denied Plessy’s argument that Louisiana’s “separate but equal” law was unconstitutional. Plessy then brought legal action to challenge Ferguson’s decision. The case came before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1896.
Plessy’s lawyers tried to convince the court that the Louisiana law violated a clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees equal protection of the laws. They also argued that racial segregation represented an extension of slavery, which the 13th Amendment had forbidden. However, the court upheld the law, and racial segregation in the South continued.
During an 1897 trial, Plessy pleaded guilty to the 1892 charges of violating Louisiana’s railroad car law. He paid a $25 fine. In his later years, Plessy worked for an insurance company. He died in New Orleans on March 1, 1925.
The 1954 Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, which involved racial segregation in public schools, overturned the “separate but equal” doctrine. The court declared that separate educational facilities could never be equal and that segregated schools violated the 14th Amendment.
