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Plessy was arrested trying to board a "whites-only" train car. The Supreme Court's decision in Plessy v. Ferguson ushered in an era of laws that kept schools, housing and other venues segregated.
The Plessy v. Ferguson ruling allowing racial segregation across American life stood as the law of the land until the Supreme Court unanimously overruled it.
Plessy was arrested trying to board a "whites-only" train car. The Supreme Court's decision in Plessy v. Ferguson ushered in an era of laws that kept schools, housing and other venues segregated.
The state Board of Pardons in November recommended the pardon for Homer Plessy, who boarded the rail car as a member of a small civil rights group hoping to overturn a state law segregating trains. Instead, the protest led to the 1896 ruling known as Plessy v. Ferguson, solidifying whites-only spaces in public accommodations such as transportation, hotels and schools for decades.
Keith Plessy, whose great-great-grandfather was Plessy’s cousin, called the event “truly a blessed day for our ancestors … and for children not yet born.”