Landmark Supreme Court Case · Equal protection
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
- Decided
- 1896
- Vote
- 7–1
- Opinion
- Justice Henry Billings Brown (majority); Justice John Marshall Harlan (dissent)
- Constitutional provisions
Facts of the case
Louisiana's Separate Car Act of 1890 required railroads to provide "equal but separate" cars for white and Black passengers. In 1892, in a planned challenge organized by a New Orleans civil rights group, Homer Plessy, a man of mixed race, sat in a car reserved for white passengers, refused to move, and was arrested. Judge John H. Ferguson upheld the law.
The constitutional question
Does a state law requiring racially separate but equal facilities violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment?
The decision
No. The Court upheld the law, reasoning that the 14th Amendment required legal equality but not social equality. Separation, the Court said, did not imply that one race was inferior. This became the "separate but equal" doctrine.
The Court's reasoning
The majority claimed that any sense of inferiority was in the minds of Black citizens, not in the law itself. Justice Harlan's lone dissent rejected that reasoning and predicted the decision would prove as harmful as Dred Scott.
Why it matters
It gave constitutional approval to Jim Crow segregation in schools, transportation, and public facilities for more than half a century. In reality, facilities were rarely equal. Brown v. Board of Education (1954) overturned it for public education.
In the Court's words
Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens.
Justice John Marshall Harlan, dissenting