Brief Summary Of Homer Plessy's Case

Homer Plessy, born March 17, 1962, was a member of the Citizens’ Committee of African Americans and Creoles, as he was one-eighth African American. As a form of rebellion against the unjust 1890 law, which stated that segregation via train coaches was perfectly constitutional, Plessy had bought a ticket for the East Louisiana Railway on June 7, 1892. As a test, he informed the train conductor that he was one-eighth black and refused to move from the whites’ only section of the train. Plessy was then arrested and later sued on grounds of violating the Separate Car Act of 1890, and thus had committed an unconstitutional act. The state of Louisiana had declared that the railroad company had the right to openly discriminate on all traffic. The case was presented to the United States Supreme Court in 1986, which then resulted in the “separate but equal” doctrine. …show more content…
He argued that the fourteenth amendment was being ignored as Plessy’s rights to “equal protection” were being neglected. While reflecting the majority decision of this case, Justice Henry Billings Brown stated that the ‘separate but equal doctrine” depended on the status of equality of all races, the usage of different facilities were a matter for society itself, not the courts. Also that the “…Laws… requiring their separation.. do not necessarily imply the inferiority of either race.” The United Stated Supreme Court ended up ruling the Louisiana Separate Car Law perfectly constitutional. After losing the case, Homer Plessy was charged $25 for the violation of the law of Louisiana. This decision then led to the expansion of Jim Crow laws until the middle of the twentieth