105-416: Plessy is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: Homer Plessy (1858, 1862 or 1863 – 1925), American shoemaker and activist Jeanne Arnould-Plessy (1819–1897), French actress See also [ edit ] Plessey Plessy v. Ferguson , U.S. Supreme Court Case, argued by Homer [REDACTED] Surname list This page lists people with
210-491: A New York Times article about Louisiana requiring segregated railroad cars. The origin of the phrase "Jim Crow" has often been attributed to " Jump Jim Crow ", a song-and-dance caricature of black people performed by white actor Thomas D. Rice in blackface , first performed in 1828. As a result of Rice's fame, Jim Crow had become by 1838 a pejorative expression meaning "Negro". When southern legislatures passed laws of racial segregation directed against African Americans at
315-417: A Washington Bee editorial wondered if the "reunion" of 1913 was a reunion of those who fought for "the extinction of slavery" or a reunion of those who fought to "perpetuate slavery and who are now employing every artifice and argument known to deceit" to present emancipation as a failed venture. Historian David W. Blight observed that the "Peace Jubilee" at which Wilson presided at Gettysburg in 1913 "was
420-475: A test case to court in order to force the judiciary to determine the constitutionality of Jim Crow laws . In his correspondence with Martinet, Tourgée suggested finding a plaintiff who had "not more than one-eight colored blood" and could pass as white. The attorney hoped that by selecting a person of ambiguous racial identity, he might exploit the Louisiana legislature's failure to define race and to force
525-610: A test case to force the U.S. Supreme Court to rule on the constitutionality of segregation laws. The Court decided against Plessy. The resulting " separate but equal " legal doctrine determined that state-mandated segregation did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution as long as the facilities provided for both black and white people were putatively "equal". The legal precedent set by Plessy v. Ferguson lasted into
630-534: A Jim Crow reunion, and white supremacy might be said to have been the silent, invisible master of ceremonies". In Texas , several towns adopted residential segregation laws between 1910 and the 1920s. Legal strictures called for segregated water fountains and restrooms. The exclusion of African Americans also found support in the Republican lily-white movement . The Civil Rights Act of 1875 , introduced by Charles Sumner and Benjamin F. Butler , stipulated
735-583: A carpenter named Joseph Adolphe Plessy, and his mother, a seamstress named Rosa Debergue, were both mixed-race free people of color . Homer's paternal grandfather, Germain Plessy was a white Frenchman born in Bordeaux circa 1777. Germain Plessy lived in the French Saint-Domingue colony, before moving to New Orleans during the 1790s as part of a group of thousands of European settlers who fled
840-596: A civil rights movement promoting political equality, racial unity, and an end to discrimination in Reconstruction-era Louisiana. Keith Medley notes that Plessy grew up in a society in which black people had gained unprecedented civil rights in Louisiana. Beginning in 1868, all black men could vote if they paid a poll tax . The state implemented a racially integrated school system in 1869. The state legislature legalized interracial marriage in 1868. And more than 200 black men held elected offices at
945-475: A clerk for the U.S. Postal Service who supplemented his income by working as a shoemaker. Dupart had six children from a previous marriage; in addition to bringing Homer and his sister Ida to the marriage, Plessy's mother had one child with Dupart. Plessy's stepfather was politically engaged, having paid poll taxes in 1869 and 1870 in order to vote. He also joined the Unification Movement of 1873,
1050-471: A combination of poll taxes , literacy and comprehension tests, and residency and record-keeping requirements. Grandfather clauses temporarily permitted some illiterate white people to vote but gave no relief to most black people. Voter turnout dropped dramatically through the South as a result of these measures. In Louisiana, by 1900, black voters were reduced to 5,320 on the rolls, although they comprised
1155-482: A concurring opinion in Steele v Louisville & Nashville Railway Co 323 192 (1944) issued that day). Murphy used the word in five separate opinions, but after he left the court, "racism" was not used again in an opinion for two decades. It next appeared in the landmark decision of Loving v. Virginia , 388 U.S. 1 (1967). Numerous boycotts and demonstrations against segregation had occurred throughout
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#17327656944631260-660: A full term and all necessary articles for the maintenance of schools, which at this moment we have not." There is no known photograph of Homer Plessy, though a photograph of P. B. S. Pinchback , a former governor of Louisiana, has been misattributed as Plessy. In 1890, the State of Louisiana passed the Separate Car Act , which required separate accommodation for black and white people on railroads, including separate railway cars . A group of 18 prominent black, creole of color, and white creole New Orleans residents formed
1365-595: A group dedicated to reforming public education in New Orleans. Not only had Louisiana abolished racially integrated schools in 1879, but many of the public schools in New Orleans were unable to stay open in the 1880s due to a lack of funding. In response, the organization published a pamphlet declaring its intention to collect and build a community library and appealing to the Louisiana state government for "our fair share of public education" with safeguards against "fraud and manipulation, thereby insuring [sic] good teachers,
1470-476: A guarantee that everyone, regardless of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, was entitled to the same treatment in public accommodations, such as inns, public transportation, theaters, and other places of recreation. This Act had little effect in practice. An 1883 Supreme Court decision ruled that the act was unconstitutional in some respects, saying Congress was not afforded control over private persons or corporations. With white southern Democrats forming
1575-579: A huge march on Washington in August 1963, bringing out 200,000 demonstrators in front of the Lincoln Memorial , at the time the largest political assembly in the nation's history. The Kennedy administration now gave full-fledged support to the civil rights movement, but powerful southern congressmen blocked any legislation. After Kennedy was assassinated, President Lyndon B. Johnson called for immediate passage of Kennedy civil rights legislation as
1680-507: A memorial to the martyred president. Johnson formed a coalition with Northern Republicans that led to passage in the House, and with the help of Republican Senate leader Everett Dirksen with passage in the Senate early in 1964. For the first time in history, the southern filibuster was broken and the Senate finally passed its version on June 19 by vote of 73 to 27. The Civil Rights Act of 1964
1785-563: A plea challenging the jurisdiction of trial court by claiming that the Separate Car Act violated the Thirteenth and Fourteenth amendments of the United States Constitution, which provided for equal protection under the law and "impermissibly clothed train officers with the authority and duty to assign passengers on the basis of race and with the authority to refuse service." Walker's plea deliberately did not specify if Plessy
1890-587: A second-class status that violated the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause , which reads: "nor shall any State ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." On May 18, 1896, the Supreme Court issued a 7–1 decision against Plessy that upheld the constitutionality of Louisiana's train car segregation laws. Justice Henry Billings Brown delivered the majority opinion, first dismissing any claim that
1995-535: A segregated culture had become common. In the Jim Crow context, the presidential election of 1912 was steeply slanted against the interests of African Americans. Most black Americans still lived in the South, where they had been effectively disfranchised, so they could not vote at all. While poll taxes and literacy requirements banned many poor or illiterate people from voting, these stipulations frequently had loopholes that exempted European Americans from meeting
2100-732: A solid voting bloc in Congress, due to having outsize power from keeping seats apportioned for the total population in the South (although hundreds of thousands had been disenfranchised), Congress did not pass another civil rights law until 1957. In 1887, Rev. W. H. Heard lodged a complaint with the Interstate Commerce Commission against the Georgia Railroad company for discrimination, citing its provision of different cars for white and black/colored passengers. The company successfully appealed for relief on
2205-461: A ticket for a "whites only" first-class train coach, boarded the train, and was arrested by a private detective hired by the group. Judge John Howard Ferguson ruled against Plessy in a state criminal district court, upholding the law on the grounds that Louisiana had the right to regulate railroads within its borders. Plessy appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which heard the case four years later in 1896 and ruled 7–1 in favor of Louisiana, establishing
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#17327656944632310-479: A whole. Over time, pushback and open defiance of the oppressive existing laws grew, until it reached a boiling point in the aggressive, large-scale activism of the 1950s civil rights movement. The NAACP Legal Defense Committee (a group that became independent of the NAACP) – and its lawyer, Thurgood Marshall – brought the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka , 347 U.S. 483 (1954) before
2415-492: A witness. In 1889, he and his wife moved to Faubourg Tremé , a racially integrated middle-class neighborhood of New Orleans at the time, and he registered to vote in the Sixth Ward 's Third Precinct. He was also a freemason . Medley writes that Plessy's political involvement began in the post-Reconstruction 1880s. In 1887, he served as vice-president of the fifty-person Justice, Protective, Educational, and Social Club,
2520-507: Is different from Wikidata All set index articles Homer Plessy Homer Adolph Plessy (born Homère Patris Plessy ; 1858, 1862 or March 17, 1863 – March 1, 1925) was an American shoemaker and activist, who was the plaintiff in the United States Supreme Court decision Plessy v. Ferguson . He staged an act of civil disobedience to challenge one of Louisiana 's racial segregation laws and bring
2625-616: The 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin) gained prominence during the era. In baseball, a color line instituted in the 1880s had informally barred black people from playing in the major leagues , leading to the development of the Negro leagues , which featured many famous players. A major breakthrough occurred in 1947, when Jackie Robinson was hired as the first African American to play in Major League Baseball; he permanently broke
2730-485: The Civil War in 1861–1865. Companion laws excluded almost all African Americans from the vote in the South and deprived them of any representative government. Although in theory, the "equal" segregation doctrine governed public facilities and transportation too, facilities for African Americans were consistently inferior and underfunded compared to facilities for white Americans ; sometimes, there were no facilities for
2835-629: The Comité des Citoyens (Committee of Citizens) to challenge the law. Many staff members of The New Orleans Crusader , a black Republican newspaper, were among the group's members, including publisher Louis A. Martinet , writer Rodolphe Desdunes , and managing editor L. J. Joubert, who served as president of the Justice, Protective, Educational, and Social Club at the same time Plessy was vice president. The group contacted attorney and civil rights advocate Albion W. Tourgée , who agreed to help them bring
2940-638: The Eight Box Law in South Carolina , acted against black and white voters who were illiterate, as they could not follow the directions. While the separation of African Americans from the white general population was becoming legalized and formalized during the Progressive Era (1890s–1920s), it was also becoming customary. Even in cases in which Jim Crow laws did not expressly forbid black people from participating in sports or recreation,
3045-753: The Freedom Summer project. The disappearance of the three activists captured national attention and the ensuing outrage was used by Johnson and civil rights activists to build a coalition of northern and western Democrats and Republicans and push Congress to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964 . On July 2, 1964, Johnson signed the historic Civil Rights Act of 1964. It invoked the Commerce Clause to outlaw discrimination in public accommodations (privately owned restaurants, hotels, and stores, and in private schools and workplaces). This use of
3150-573: The Haitian Revolution . Germain Plessy later lived with Catherine Mathieu, a free woman of color of French and African ancestry, and they had eight children. According to pre-Civil War records, Homer's maternal grandparents were both of African descent or mixed race. Many of Homer's ancestors and relatives were property-owning tradesmen, including blacksmiths , carpenters , and shoemakers . Joseph Adolphe Plessy died in 1869. Two years later in 1871, Homer's mother married Victor M. Dupart,
3255-460: The U.S. Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren . In its pivotal 1954 decision, the Warren Court unanimously (9–0) overturned the 1896 Plessy decision. The Supreme Court found that legally mandated ( de jure ) public school segregation was unconstitutional. The decision had far-reaching social ramifications. Racial integration of all-white collegiate sports teams was high on
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3360-409: The surname Plessy . If an internal link intending to refer to a specific person led you to this page, you may wish to change that link by adding the person's given name (s) to the link. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Plessy&oldid=1246087038 " Category : Surnames Hidden categories: Articles with short description Short description
3465-587: The "coloreds only" car. Plessy refused and was immediately arrested. The Citizens Committee of New Orleans fought the case all the way to the United States Supreme Court. They lost in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), in which the Court ruled that "separate but equal" facilities were constitutional. The finding contributed to 58 more years of legalized discrimination against black and colored people in
3570-540: The "separate but equal" doctrine as a legal basis for the Jim Crow laws which remained in effect into the 1950s and 1960s. Plessy may have been born in 1858, 1862, or on March 17, 1863, under the name Homère Patris Plessy. He was the second of two children in a French-speaking Creole family in New Orleans , Louisiana . Later documents give his name as Homer Adolph Plessy or Homère Adolphe Plessy. His father,
3675-563: The 1880s in local areas with large black populations, but their voting was suppressed for state and national elections. States passed laws to make voter registration and electoral rules more restrictive, with the result that political participation by most black people and many poor white people began to decrease. Between 1890 and 1910, ten of the eleven former Confederate states , beginning with Mississippi , passed new constitutions or amendments that effectively disenfranchised most black people and tens of thousands of poor white people through
3780-469: The 1920s. However, this did build the foundation for later generations to advance racial equality and de-segregation. Chafe argued that the places essential for change to begin were institutions, particularly black churches, which functioned as centers for community-building and discussion of politics. Additionally, some all-black communities, such as Mound Bayou, Mississippi and Ruthville, Virginia served as sources of pride and inspiration for black society as
3885-523: The 1930s and 1940s. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) had been engaged in a series of litigation cases since the early 20th century in efforts to combat laws that disenfranchised black voters across the South. Some of the early demonstrations achieved positive results, strengthening political activism, especially in the post-World War II years. Black veterans were impatient with social oppression after having fought for
3990-582: The ACC schools were successful in their endeavor – as Pamela Grundy argues, they had learned how to win: In 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a city bus to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama . This was not the first time this happened – for example, Parks was inspired by 15-year-old Claudette Colvin doing the same thing nine months earlier – but the Parks act of civil disobedience
4095-574: The Commerce Clause was upheld by the Warren Court in the landmark case Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States 379 US 241 (1964). By 1965, efforts to break the grip of state disenfranchisement by education for voter registration in southern counties had been underway for some time, but had achieved only modest success overall. In some areas of the Deep South, white resistance made these efforts almost entirely ineffectual. The murder of
4200-527: The Jim Crow era, libraries were only available sporadically. Prior to the 20th century, most libraries established for African Americans were school-library combinations. Many public libraries for both European-American and African-American patrons in this period were founded as the result of middle-class activism aided by matching grants from the Carnegie Foundation . In some cases, progressive measures intended to reduce election fraud, such as
4305-478: The Jim Crow laws, and the so-called "separate but equal" doctrine. In 1954, segregation of public schools (state-sponsored) was declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka . In some states, it took many years to implement this decision, while the Warren Court continued to rule against Jim Crow legislation in other cases such as Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States (1964). In general,
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4410-615: The Jim Crow system. The decisive action ending segregation came when Congress in bipartisan fashion overcame Southern filibusters to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 . A complex interaction of factors came together unexpectedly in the period 1954–1965 to make the momentous changes possible. The Supreme Court had taken the first initiative in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), declaring segregation of public schools unconstitutional. Enforcement
4515-629: The Louisiana State Supreme Court ruled that the Separate Car Act did not apply to interstate railroad trips. In order to bring their test case to court, the Comité des Citoyens had to stage another incident on a train trip entirely within Louisiana state lines. They recruited Plessy, who may have been a friend of Rodolphe Desdunes, to be the plaintiff. Martinet contacted the East Louisiana Railroad , one of
4620-683: The Louisiana law violated the Thirteenth Amendment, which, in the majority's opinion, did no more than ensure that black Americans had the basic level of legal equality needed to abolish slavery. Next, the Court considered whether the law violated the Equal Protection Clause, concluding that although the Fourteenth Amendment was meant to guarantee legal equality of all races in America, it was not intended to prevent social or other types of discrimination. The object of
4725-741: The President and Congress to overcome Southern legislators' resistance to effective voting rights enforcement legislation. President Johnson issued a call for a strong voting rights law and hearings soon began on the bill that would become the Voting Rights Act. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 ended legally sanctioned state barriers to voting for all federal, state and local elections. It also provided for federal oversight and monitoring of counties with historically low minority voter turnout. Years of enforcement have been needed to overcome resistance, and additional legal challenges have been made in
4830-555: The Press Street Depot in New Orleans and Covington, Louisiana , an approximately 30-mile journey that would have taken two hours. He sat in the "whites only" passenger car. When conductor J. J. Dowling, who was also in on the staged act, came to collect Plessy's ticket, he told Plessy to leave the "whites only" car. Plessy refused. The conductor stopped the train, walked back to the depot, and returned with Detective Cain. Cain and other passengers forcibly removed Plessy from
4935-399: The Separate Car Act, which carried a punishment of a $ 25 fine or twenty days in jail. He opted to pay the fine. The Comité des Citoyens disbanded shortly after the trial's end. The shoemaking profession declined in the late 19th and early 20th centuries due to large-scale industrial production, so Plessy later took jobs as a laborer, warehouseman, clerk, and insurance premium collector for
5040-466: The South. As the civil rights movement gained momentum and used federal courts to attack Jim Crow statutes, the white-dominated governments of many of the southern states countered by passing alternative forms of resistance. Historian William Chafe has explored the defensive techniques developed inside the African American community to avoid the worst features of Jim Crow as expressed in
5145-435: The South. One rationale for the systematic exclusion of African Americans from southern public society was that it was for their own protection. An early 20th-century scholar suggested that allowing black people to attend white schools would mean "constantly subjecting them to adverse feeling and opinion", which might lead to "a morbid race consciousness". This perspective took anti-black sentiment for granted, because bigotry
5250-719: The Southern agenda in the 1950s and 1960s. Involved were issues of equality, racism, and the alumni demand for the top players needed to win high-profile games. The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) of flagship state universities in the Southeast took the lead. First they started to schedule integrated teams from the North. Finally, ACC schools – typically under pressure from boosters and civil rights groups – integrated their teams. With an alumni base that dominated local and state politics, society and business,
5355-612: The State of Louisiana had violated the Thirteenth Amendment that abolished slavery, and the Fourteenth Amendment that stated, "no state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, and property without due process of law." He also argued that segregation laws inherently implied that black people were inferior, and therefore stigmatized them with
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#17327656944635460-669: The Treasury William Gibbs McAdoo – an appointee of the President ;– was heard to express his opinion of black and white women working together in one government office: "I feel sure that this must go against the grain of the white women. Is there any reason why the white women should not have only white women working across from them on the machines?" The Wilson administration introduced segregation in federal offices, despite much protest from African-American leaders and white progressive groups in
5565-514: The Union address , Johnson asked Congress to "let this session of Congress be known as the session which did more for civil rights than the last hundred sessions combined." On June 21, civil rights workers Michael Schwerner , Andrew Goodman , and James Chaney disappeared in Neshoba County, Mississippi , where they were volunteering in the registration of African American voters as part of
5670-505: The United States and freedom across the world. In 1947 K. Leroy Irvis of Pittsburgh 's Urban League, for instance, led a demonstration against employment discrimination by the city's department stores. It was the beginning of his own influential political career. After World War II, people of color increasingly challenged segregation, as they believed they had more than earned the right to be treated as full citizens because of their military service and sacrifices. The civil rights movement
5775-574: The United States as well, even as several states outside the South had banned discrimination in public accommodations and voting. Southern laws were enacted by white-dominated state legislatures ( Redeemers ) to disenfranchise and remove political and economic gains made by African Americans during the Reconstruction era . Such continuing racial segregation was also supported by the successful Lily-white movement . In practice, Jim Crow laws mandated racial segregation in all public facilities in
5880-685: The United States. In 1908, Congress defeated an attempt to introduce segregated streetcars into the capital. White Southerners encountered problems in learning free labor management after the end of slavery, and they resented African Americans, who represented the Confederacy 's Civil War defeat: "With white supremacy being challenged throughout the South, many whites sought to protect their former status by threatening African Americans who exercised their new rights." White Southerners used their power to segregate public spaces and facilities in law and reestablish social dominance over black people in
5985-551: The [Fourteenth] Amendment was undoubtedly to enforce the absolute equality of the two races before the law, but in the nature of things, it could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color, or to enforce social, as distinguished from political equality, or a commingling of the two races upon terms unsatisfactory to either. The Court also rejected Tourgée's argument that segregation laws marked black Americans with "a badge of inferiority," and said that racial prejudice could not be overcome by legislation. We consider
6090-662: The aid of former Solicitor General Samuel F. Phillips as co-counsel. The case first appeared on the docket in January 1893, but Tourgée wrote to the Comité des Citoyens voicing his concerns that they would lose. In the three years since the Comité des Citoyens first organized, the court's makeup had changed under the administration of President Benjamin Harrison and had taken on a more segregationist tilt. He hoped that unsympathetic justices would change their minds with time or retire, writing in one letter: "The Court has always been
6195-774: The backdrop of church bombings and assassinations. In summer 1963, there were 800 demonstrations in 200 southern cities and towns, with over 100,000 participants, and 15,000 arrests. In Alabama in June 1963, Governor George Wallace escalated the crisis by defying court orders to admit the first two black students to the University of Alabama . Kennedy responded by sending Congress a comprehensive civil rights bill, and ordered Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy to file federal lawsuits against segregated schools, and to deny funds for discriminatory programs. Martin Luther King launched
6300-484: The black community at all. Far from equality, as a body of law, Jim Crow institutionalized economic, educational, political and social disadvantages and second-class citizenship for most African Americans living in the United States. After the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was founded in 1909, it became involved in a sustained public protest and campaigns against
6405-735: The black-owned People's Life Insurance Company. He died on March 1, 1925, in New Orleans. His obituary read: "Homer Plessy — on Sunday, March 1, 1925, at 5:10 a.m. beloved husband of Louise Bordenave." He was interred in the Debergue-Blanco family tomb in Saint Louis Cemetery No. 1 in New Orleans, Louisiana. The Supreme Court's decision in Plessy v. Ferguson created the " Separate but Equal " legal doctrine, allowing state-sponsored racial segregation. The Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education overturned
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#17327656944636510-486: The companies that opposed the law, and declared their intentions to stage an act of civil disobedience. He also hired the services of private detective Chris C. Cain to arrest Plessy and ensure that he was charged with violating the Separate Car Act and not with a misdemeanor such as disturbing the peace. On June 7, 1892, Plessy bought a first-class ticket on the East Louisiana Railroad running between
6615-434: The court to consider the inconclusiveness of scientific evidence on definitive racial categories. In court, he later argued that a man of one-eighth African ancestry may not even know to which race he belongs, so a railroad employee would be even less qualified to "decide the question of race" and determine in what car a mixed-race individual ought to sit. Tourgée also suggested finding a female plaintiff, because he believed
6720-492: The courts might be more sympathetic to a woman being ejected from a railroad car. However, the Comité des Citoyens instead recruited musician Daniel Desdunes , the son of group member Rodolphe Desdunes. Martinet contacted several railroad companies to inform them of the group's intentions. The railroads overwhelmingly opposed the Separate Car Act because it raised their operating costs by forcing them to use additional cars that might only be at half capacity. Some companies enforced
6825-716: The courts to ensure the ability of voters to elect candidates of their choice. For instance, many cities and counties introduced at-large election of council members, which resulted in many cases of diluting minority votes and preventing election of minority-supported candidates. In 2013, the Roberts Court , in Shelby County v. Holder , removed the requirement established by the Voting Rights Act that Southern states needed Federal approval for changes in voting policies. Several states immediately made changes in their laws restricting voting access. The Jim Crow laws and
6930-441: The doctrine in 1954. Though the Plessy case did not involve education, it formed the legal basis of separate school systems for the following fifty-eight years. In 2009, Keith Plessy and Phoebe Ferguson, relatives of Plessy and Ferguson, respectively, created the Plessy and Ferguson Foundation for Education and Reconciliation. The foundation placed a historical marker at the corner of Press and Royal Streets in New Orleans, near
7035-496: The end of the 19th century, these statutes became known as Jim Crow laws. In January 1865, an amendment to the Constitution abolishing slavery in the United States was proposed by Congress and ratified as the Thirteenth Amendment on December 18, 1865. During the Reconstruction era of 1865–1877, federal laws provided civil rights protections in the U.S. South for freedmen , African Americans who were former slaves, and
7140-469: The foe of liberty until forced to move on by public opinion." In the 1890s, a case could take several years to appear before reaching the Supreme Court, and Plessy's lawyers hoped to delay until close to the 1896 United States presidential election , in the hopes the election might influence the outcome in their favor. However, the court called the case in spring 1896, and the oral arguments of Plessy v. Ferguson were held on April 13. Tourgée argued that
7245-560: The grounds it offered "separate but equal" accommodation. In 1890, Louisiana passed a law requiring separate accommodations for colored and white passengers on railroads. Louisiana law distinguished between "white", "black" and "colored" (that is, people of mixed European and African ancestry). The law had already specified that black people could not ride with white people, but colored people could ride with white people before 1890. A group of concerned black, colored and white citizens in New Orleans formed an association dedicated to rescinding
7350-781: The high rate of lynchings in the South were major factors that led to the Great Migration during the first half of the 20th century. Because opportunities were very limited in the South, African Americans moved in great numbers to cities in Northeastern, Midwestern, and Western states to seek better lives. African American athletes faced much discrimination during the Jim Crow era with white opposition leading to their exclusion from most organized sporting competitions. The boxers Jack Johnson and Joe Louis (both of whom became world heavyweight boxing champions ) and track and field athlete Jesse Owens (who won four gold medals at
7455-587: The law, while others did not. Martinet eventually enlisted the Louisville and Nashville Railroad Company to participate in the group's plan. On February 24, 1892, Daniel Desdunes purchased a first-class ticket on a train bound for Mobile, Alabama . After he sat in a "whites only" car, the conductor stopped the train, and a private detective hired by the Comité des Citoyens arrested Desdunes. The prosecution dropped their case against Desdunes in May 1892, however, after
7560-467: The law. Woodrow Wilson was a Democrat elected from New Jersey, but he was born and raised in the South, and was the first Southern-born president of the post- Civil War period. He appointed Southerners to his Cabinet . Some quickly began to press for segregated workplaces, although the city of Washington, D.C., and federal offices had been integrated since after the Civil War. In 1913, Secretary of
7665-557: The law. He wrote that while the question of whether Plessy was legally black or white may have bearing on the outcome of the criminal case, legal definitions of racial categories were an issue of state law not before the U.S. Supreme Court. Ultimately, Brown deferred to Louisiana law to determine whether Plessy was legally black or white. After the Supreme Court ruling, Plessy's criminal trial went ahead in Ferguson's court in Louisiana on February 11, 1897. He pleaded guilty of violating
7770-488: The law. The group persuaded Homer Plessy to test it; he was a man of color who was of fair complexion and one-eighth "Negro" in ancestry. In 1892, Plessy bought a first-class ticket from New Orleans on the East Louisiana Railway. Once he had boarded the train, he informed the train conductor of his racial lineage and took a seat in the whites-only car. He was directed to leave that car and sit instead in
7875-399: The legal system, unbalanced economic power, and intimidation and psychological pressure. Chafe says "protective socialization by black people themselves" was created inside the community in order to accommodate white-imposed sanctions while subtly encouraging challenges to those sanctions. Known as "walking the tightrope", such efforts at bringing about change were only slightly effective before
7980-501: The majority of the state's population. By 1910, only 730 black people were registered, less than 0.5% of eligible black men. "In 27 of the state's 60 parishes, not a single black voter was registered any longer; in 9 more parishes, only one black voter was." The cumulative effect in North Carolina meant that black voters were eliminated from voter rolls during the period from 1896 to 1904. The growth of their thriving middle class
8085-423: The mid-20th century, until a series of landmark Supreme Court decisions concerning segregation, beginning with Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. Plessy was born a free person of color in a family of French-speaking Louisiana Creole people . Growing up during the Reconstruction era , Plessy lived in a society in which black children attended integrated schools, black men could vote, and interracial marriage
8190-487: The minority of black people who had been free before the war. In the 1870s, Democrats gradually regained power in the Southern legislatures as violent insurgent paramilitary groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan , White League , and Red Shirts disrupted Republican organizing, ran Republican officeholders out of town, and lynched black voters as an intimidation tactic to suppress the black vote. Extensive voter fraud
8295-502: The new restrictions. Those who could not vote were not eligible to serve on juries and could not run for local offices. They effectively disappeared from political life, as they could not influence the state legislatures, and their interests were overlooked. While public schools had been established by Reconstruction legislatures for the first time in most Southern states, those for black children were consistently underfunded compared to schools for white children, even when considered within
8400-643: The north and midwest. He appointed segregationist Southern politicians because of his own firm belief that racial segregation was in the best interest of black and European Americans alike. At the Great Reunion of 1913 at Gettysburg , Wilson addressed the crowd on July 4, the semi-centennial of Abraham Lincoln 's declaration that " all men are created equal ": How complete the union has become and how dear to all of us, how unquestioned, how benign and majestic, as state after state has been added to this, our great family of free men! In sharp contrast to Wilson,
8505-632: The old, much more moderate NAACP in taking leadership roles. King organized massive demonstrations, that seized massive media attention in an era when network television news was an innovative and universally watched phenomenon. SCLC, student activists and smaller local organizations staged demonstrations across the South. National attention focused on Birmingham , Alabama, where protesters mostly young teenagers, faced off against Commissioner of Public Safety Bull Connor , Connor arrested 900 on one day alone. The next day Connor unleashed billy clubs, police dogs, and high-pressure water hoses to disperse and punish
8610-470: The presidential election resulted in the government withdrawing the last of the federal troops from the South. White Democrats had regained political power in every Southern state. These Southern, white, " Redeemer " governments legislated Jim Crow laws, officially segregating the country's population. Jim Crow laws were a manifestation of authoritarian rule specifically directed at one racial group. Black people were still elected to local offices throughout
8715-571: The purpose of maintaining or enforcing racial separation or discrimination of individuals. Jim Crow laws The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws introduced in the Southern United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that enforced racial segregation , " Jim Crow " being a pejorative term for an African American . The last of the Jim Crow laws were generally overturned in 1965 . Formal and informal racial segregation policies were present in other areas of
8820-410: The remaining Jim Crow laws were generally overturned by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 . Southern state anti-miscegenation laws were generally overturned in the 1967 case of Loving v. Virginia . The earliest known use of the phrase "Jim Crow law" can be dated to 1884 in a newspaper article summarizing congressional debate. The term appears in 1892 in the title of
8925-433: The requirements. In Oklahoma , for instance, anyone qualified to vote before 1866, or related to someone qualified to vote before 1866 (a kind of " grandfather clause "), was exempted from the literacy requirement; but the only men who had the franchise before that year were white or European-American. European Americans were effectively exempted from the literacy testing, whereas black Americans were effectively singled out by
9030-510: The site of Homer Plessy's arrest. A portion of Press Street was renamed after Plessy in 2018. On January 5, 2022, Louisiana governor John Bel Edwards granted Plessy a posthumous pardon . The pardon was issued in accordance with "The Avery C. Alexander Act. This 2006 act was passed by the Louisiana Legislature to expedite the pardon process for individuals who were criminalized and convicted under Louisiana laws created for
9135-602: The state and local levels in the 1870s. However, Medley writes that many of those gains eroded following the withdrawal of U.S. federal troops from the former Confederacy in 1877. When white Democrats returned to power in the late 1870s, they began to defund public education for black people. Plessy worked as a shoemaker and may have also done carpentry, according to a relative. During the 1880s, he worked at Patricio Brito's shoe-making business in New Orleans's French Quarter . He married nineteen-year-old Louise Bordenave at St. Augustine Church on July 14, 1888; Brito served as
9240-472: The states of the former Confederate States of America and in some others, beginning in the 1870s. Jim Crow laws were upheld in 1896 in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson , in which the Supreme Court laid out its " separate but equal " legal doctrine concerning facilities for African Americans. Moreover, public education had essentially been segregated since its establishment in most of the South after
9345-413: The strained finances of the postwar South where the decreasing price of cotton kept the agricultural economy at a low. Like schools, public libraries for black people were underfunded, if they existed at all, and they were often stocked with secondhand books and other resources. These facilities were not introduced for African Americans in the South until the first decade of the 20th century. Throughout
9450-562: The three voting-rights activists in Mississippi in 1964 and the state's refusal to prosecute the murderers, along with numerous other acts of violence and terrorism against black people, had gained national attention. Finally, the unprovoked attack on March 7, 1965 , by county and state troopers on peaceful Alabama marchers crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge en route from Selma to the state capital of Montgomery , persuaded
9555-520: The train. Cain then arrested Plessy and took him to the Orleans Parish jail. The Comité des Citoyens arrived at the jail, arranged for him to be released, and paid his $ 500 bond the following day by offering up a committee member's house as collateral. On October 28, 1892, Plessy was arraigned before Judge John Howard Ferguson in the Orleans Parish criminal district court. He was represented by New Orleans lawyer James Walker, who submitted
9660-403: The underlying fallacy of the plaintiff's argument to consist in the assumption that the enforced separation of the two races stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority. If this be so, it is not by reason of anything found in the act, but solely because the colored race chooses to put that construction on it. Brown's opinion ended with a note on the subject of Plessy's racial identity under
9765-459: The word " racism " into the lexicon of U.S. Supreme Court opinions in Korematsu v. United States , 323 U.S. 214 (1944). In his dissenting opinion, Murphy stated that by upholding the forced relocation of Japanese Americans during World War II, the Court was sinking into "the ugly abyss of racism". This was the first time that "racism" was used in Supreme Court opinion (Murphy used it twice in
9870-480: The young demonstrators with a brutality that horrified the nation. The brutality undermined the image of a modernizing progressive urban South. President John F. Kennedy , who had been calling for moderation, threatened to use federal troops to restore order in Birmingham. The result in Birmingham was compromise by which the new mayor opened the library, golf courses, and other city facilities to both races, against
9975-527: Was also used. In one instance, an outright coup or insurrection in coastal North Carolina led to the violent removal of democratically elected Republican party executive and representative officials, who were either hunted down or hounded out. Gubernatorial elections were close and had been disputed in Louisiana for years, with increasing violence against black Americans during campaigns from 1868 onward. The Compromise of 1877 to gain Southern support in
10080-723: Was black or white. On November 18, Ferguson denied Walker's petition, stating that Louisiana had the right to regulate railroad companies while they operated within state boundaries. Four days later, Walker petitioned the Louisiana Supreme Court for a writ of prohibition to stop the trial. In December 1892, the Louisiana Supreme Court's five members unanimously upheld Ferguson's ruling, citing two cases from Northern states as precedents: Roberts v. City of Boston , an 1849 Massachusetts Supreme Court decision, ruling that racial segregation of schools
10185-418: Was chosen, symbolically, as an important catalyst in the growth of the post-1954 civil rights movement ; activists built the Montgomery bus boycott around it, which lasted more than a year and resulted in desegregation of the privately run buses in the city. Civil rights protests and actions, together with legal challenges, resulted in a series of legislative and court decisions which contributed to undermining
10290-412: Was constitutional, and an 1867 Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling that upheld railroads' rights to seat black and white passengers in separate sections of passenger cars. The court denied Walker's subsequent request for a rehearing. On January 5, 1893, Walker applied for a writ of error , which the United States Supreme Court accepted. Tourgée would represent Plessy before the Supreme Court and enlisted
10395-417: Was energized by a number of flashpoints, including the 1946 police beating and blinding of World War II veteran Isaac Woodard while he was in U.S. Army uniform. In 1948 President Harry S. Truman issued Executive Order 9981 , ending racial discrimination in the armed services. That same year, Silas Herbert Hunt enrolled in the University of Arkansas , effectively starting the desegregation of education in
10500-487: Was legal. However, many of those civil rights were eroded following the withdrawal of U.S. federal troops from the former Confederate States of America in 1877. In the 1880s, Plessy became involved in political activism, and in 1892, the civil rights group Comité des Citoyens recruited him for an act of civil disobedience to challenge Louisiana's Separate Car Act , which required separate accommodations for black and white people on railroads. On June 7, 1892, Plessy purchased
10605-526: Was outlawed for businesses with 25 or more employees, as well as apartment houses. The South resisted until the last moment, but as soon as the new law was signed by President Johnson on July 2, 1964, it was widely accepted across the nation. There was only a scattering of diehard opposition, typified by restaurant owner Lester Maddox in Georgia. In January 1964, President Lyndon Johnson met with civil rights leaders. On January 8, during his first State of
10710-647: Was rapid in the North and border states, but was deliberately stopped in the South by the movement called Massive Resistance , sponsored by rural segregationists who largely controlled the state legislatures. Southern liberals, who counseled moderation, were shouted down by both sides and had limited impact. Much more significant was the civil rights movement, especially the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) headed by Martin Luther King Jr. It largely displaced
10815-457: Was slowed. In North Carolina and other Southern states, black people suffered from being made invisible in the political system: "[W]ithin a decade of disfranchisement, the white supremacy campaign had erased the image of the black middle class from the minds of white North Carolinians." In Alabama , tens of thousands of poor whites were also disenfranchised, although initially legislators had promised them they would not be affected adversely by
10920-569: Was the most powerful affirmation of equal rights ever made by Congress. It guaranteed access to public accommodations such as restaurants and places of amusement, authorized the Justice Department to bring suits to desegregate facilities in schools, gave new powers to the Civil Rights Commission ; and allowed federal funds to be cut off in cases of discrimination. Furthermore, racial, religious and gender discrimination
11025-462: Was widespread in the South after slavery became a racial caste system. Justifications for white supremacy were provided by scientific racism and negative stereotypes of African Americans . Social segregation, from housing to laws against interracial chess games, was justified as a way to prevent black men from having sex with white women and in particular the rapacious Black Buck stereotype. In 1944, Associate Justice Frank Murphy introduced
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