PLESSY V. FERGUSON Date: 1896
Facts of Plessy v. Ferguson:
Homer Plessy was jailed for sitting in a railroad car designated for whites
only. Plessy was in fact seven-eighths white and one-eighth black which by
Louisiana law meant he was treated as an African-American and required to
sit in the car designated for "colored" patrons. When Plessy lost his initial
court case, his appeal made it to the US Supreme Court. The Court ruled 7-1
that the Louisiana law requiring that the races be separated did not violate
the thirteenth or fourteenth amendments to the Constitution as long as the
facilities were deemed equal.
Significance of Plessy v. Ferguson:
Plessy v. Ferguson is an extremely important court case in that it gave legal
standing to the idea of separate but equal. This doctrine required that any
separate facilities had to be of equal quality. However, as segregation grew
in the South this was often not the case. The Plessy decision would be used
as a precedent until 1954 with the Supreme Court decision in Brown v.
Board of Education.