Talk:Plessy v. Ferguson

Plessey's Race

the writer of this article placed emphasis on the fact that Plessy was 1/8 black. Sometimes people seem to forget that. It never fails to puzzle me that a man who is only an 1/8th black could even look black, to a point where he would be asked to sit in the "black section." Either the train conductor was hyper/unnaturally aware of any faint trace of "color" in the skin or he knew Plessy, or of his family, from before the fact. Actually, the train conductor had been previously informed that there was going to be a protest that day. Plessy had actually belonged to a specific committee that challenged the segregation on public trains. As for how did the conductor know it was Plessy who was involved is still a mystery to me. --Chandni S

It's a very strange case. --Ashley Rovira 22:25, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

It wasn't strange, it was planned. Those who wanted to challenge "separate but equal" deliberately chose to deploy a person who looked white, but was black according to law, in order to highlight the unfairness of the law allowing racial segregation. To ensure that Plessy would be ordered out of the white section of the train, the railroad was told that he would be aboard. But the railroad employees didn't know and couldn't tell who the black was sitting in the white section, so Plessy told them himself -- otherwise there would have been no point to the entire adventure. The railroad could then have prevented a lawsuit they knew they were being set up for but 1. other white passengers, overhearing Plessy, would certainly have objected -- they were paying a premium to be seated only with fellow whites. 2. the railroad wanted to enforce its policy, i.e. to eject any Negro discovered to be violating its rules and scaring its market by infiltrating white passenger compartments (blacks who could pass for white were notoriously common in Louisiana, thanks to the genetic legacy of the "Octoroon Balls"). Since the railroad won their case in court, their decision to eject Plessy was vindicated legally and market-wise, if not morally. Lethiere 19:42, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

The Plessy case is a lesson for the planners of civil rights litigation. Setting up a case to ask what difference legal race means when the party appears to belong to another race taunted the Court. The better case would have a clearly black person seek to ride with a white person to discuss business on the train. Where would the railroad seat them? That would reveal the way segregation interfered with economic development in the South. Today, we can all learn to pick our cases more wisely. r3 02:58, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

The article says:

Justice Brown declared, "We consider 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 upon it."

Then it adds:

In other words, the Court held that state governments could bar blacks from public facilities based on traditional notions of racial inferiority.

But that's not what Brown said. He said that while African Americans and Caucasian Americans were separated, the fact that one was superior or inferior to the other only came from what African American people themselves were suggesting in their lawsuit. One may disgree with that statement, but that is his point. I'm replacing "In other words" with "In consequence".

There seems to be a conflict in the "facts" of the Plessy v. Ferguson United States Supreme Court decision. In the main article of Plessy v. Ferguson it states :

"The railroad company had been informed already as to Plessy's racial lineage, and after Plessy had taken a seat in the whites-only railway car, he was asked to vacate it and sit instead in the blacks-only car. Plessy refused and was arrested immediately."

which seems to indicate that a third party had informed beforehand by a third party of Plessy's racial liniage. This is contardicted by the Homer Plessy page which states:

"On June 7, 1892, Plessy bought a first-class ticket on the East Louisiana Railroad, running between New Orleans and Covington, and sat in the "whites only" passenger car. When the conductor came to collect his ticket, he told him that he was 1/8 African American, and he was refusing sit in the black only car."

Could someone out there who has any idea about this case please rectify this contradiction.

Actualy, within the text, it is stated that "Plessy appeared to be a white man, and consequently he had to inform the conductor of his heritage before any objection was even made to his seat choice."

French version longer than English??

Why is the French version of this article longer than the English? They have the legal reasoning from the majority and dissent -- let's get somebody to write that in English!

Agreed -- we just covered this in my con law class; there's a heck of a lot more to say about it -- the "priveleges and immunities" v. "priveleges or immunities" clauses, equal protection clause, due process clause, and 13th & 14th Amendments each deserve at least a paragraph, not to mention at least a sentence or two on the distinction between substantive and procedural due process used by Brown. Harlan's dissent is legendary and should be given a lot more play. I'll give it what time I have soon, hopefully. Ryanluck 04:35, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

SOMETHING NEEDS TO BE SAID ABOUT THURGOOD MARSHALL'S INVOLVEMENT IN PLESSY. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.151.79.254 (talk) 23:24, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

and what exactly was that? Marshall was born 12 years after Plessy was decided --Unclebanglin (talk) 22:29, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

later cases

This article notes that Plessy found the quality of accomodation in the whites-only and blacks-only first-class railroad cars to be equivalent, and therefore "separate but equal", but also notes that the same was not true of many other segregated facilities. The obvious question that raises then is: Did anyone challenge any other facilities, not on the mere fact of their being segregated, but specifically on the basis of their being unequal? If so, did any of those challenges reach the Supreme Court? This seems like it'd be useful information towards the end of the article. --Delirium 07:22, 3 July 2006 (UTC)..

Thirteenth Amendment vs. Fourteenth Amendment

Thirteenth Amendment vs. Fourteenth Amendment???

Wasn't it the Fourteenth Amendment???? Equal Protection of the Laws instead of the abolishion of involuntary servitute that Plessy claimed to be violated.

My history textbooks says so and it makes more sense in my eyes.

Sources: Schmidt Shelly Bardes, American Governmant and Politics Today, 2005-2006 Alternate Edition, page 153.

Dynmics of Democracy, 2004 Version, Third Edition, Peverill Squire and more, page 147.

--Carsten79 00:47, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Who is Justice Pham, I've never heard of him and aparently google has not either. With Brewer sitting out, it should have been a 7-1 majority however the site says 8-1 with brewer out and a mysterious pham appearing twice in the article.

--ARiina 23:01, 14 November 2006 (EST)

The decision was 7-1, so it seems, though all the references I can find simply state that Brown was writing "for the court" while Harlan dissented and Brewer didn't take part. The mysterious "Pham" may be Rufus Peckham of Lochner fame. The reason the 13th Amendment comes up is that in his dissent Harlan states "We boast of the freedom enjoyed by our people above all other peoples. But it is difficult to reconcile that boast with a state law which, practically, puts the brand of servitude and degradation upon a large class of our fellow-citizens, our equals before the law." (American Constitutional Law, Fisher, 6th ed., p. 769.) The "bond of servitude" seems to be a clear reference to the 13th Amendment, which prohibits "involuntary servitude." The 13th Amendment Dogdoridns does seem a bit redundant in light of the 14th's equal protection clause, but they had different purposes. The 13th was specifically to end black slavery, so Harlan's reference to it may be a reference that the Louisiana laws violate even the most basic notion of equal protection present in the Constitution. Ryanluck 16:36, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Plessy challenged the Louisiana Law for violating both the 13th and 14th amendment. I would think Plessy's argument that it violated the 13th Amendment was something like this: "This was discrimination which implied a legal inferiority in civil society, which lessened the security of the colored race, and was a step toward reducing them to a condition of servility." (This quote was taken out of the Plessy opinion written by J. Brown, but the Court was discussing another case. I liked the language and think this is essentially the argument Plessy made as to the 13th amendment violation.) The majority opinion was that this statute does not conflict with the 13th Amendment whatsoever.

I think there should be a correction made to the Wikipedia Article. In the decision section it says: "In a 7 to 1 decision in which Justice David Josiah Brewer did not participate,[3] the Court rejected Plessy's arguments based on the Fourteenth [this should be Thirteenth] Amendment, seeing no way in which the Louisiana statute violated it. In addition, the majority of the Court rejected the view that the Louisiana law implied any inferiority of blacks, in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Instead, it contended that the law separated the two races as a matter of public policy."

It seems to me that the original author did write Thirteenth Amendment first, and someone changed it to the Fourteenth Amendment (from the way the paragraph is written). I know for sure the court addressed the 13th, as well as the 14th Amendment violations: "That [the challenged LA statute] does not conflict with the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, is too clear for argument." Cristinalipan (talk) 17:15, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

References

Protection

This article's seeing a lot of vandalism, how about some protection to stop this continuing to happen? Tphi 16:22, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Ferguson?

This article identifies Homer Plessy but makes no mention of the other party to the case, John Howard Ferguson, who I believe was the Lousiana judge who made the initial ruling against Plessy. Could we get some information on his role? MK2 19:38, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

I noticed that too. Considering his name is also linked to both the case and the article, readers should know who John Ferguson was, along with Homer Plessy. darnold01 02:50, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I completely agree. The case involves both Homer A. Plessy and Ferguson. I don't think that readers should be restricted on this knowledge in the Plessy vs. Ferguson article. It would be rather convenient for information-seekers to find information on Ferguson in this article instead of having to search for a whole new article. --~Keith (talk) 23:08, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Biographical details about John Howard Ferguson, who was from New England, are contained in the book by Keith Weldon Medley, We as Freedmen Skywriter (talk) 17:39, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

1895 Atlanta Compromise Speech

Booker T. Washington delivered the 1895 Atlanta Compromise Speech in the year "prior" to Plessy v. Ferguson--September 18, 1895. The article states, "Along with Booker T. Washington's Atlanta Compromise address, delivered the same year, which accepted black social isolation from white society, Plessy provided an impetus for further segregation laws."

The article should be edited to read, "Along with Booker T. Washington's Atlanta Compromise address, delivered the previous year, which accepted black social isolation from white society, Plessy provided an impetus for further segregation laws."

Thanks. --Robert Lucas 03:38, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

ATLANTA COMPROMISE A YEAR EARLIER

Washington's Atlanta Compromise speech was a year earlier, in 1895, not the same year as Plessy, as the article states. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.193.243.216 (talk) 13:31, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Reaction

This article needs a section on the reaction to the case. What did whites do? Was there a black reaction? What about other reactions, ideological or physical. Piratejosh85 (talk) 03:57, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

There's quite a lot of information about this case in the current issue of The New Orleans Tribune including an article by a sitting Justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court. [1] and [2]Skywriter (talk) 23:43, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Error on main page

The main page of this article says the Supreme Court decision was 8-1. This is incorrect, the decision was 7-1. Justice Harlan dissented; Justice Brewer didn't participate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.200.197.250 (talk) 21:53, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Recent blanking of entire section

Someone blanked the section on the Plessy Ferguson foundation based on the allegation that it is advertising. Please discuss how this fits the criteria for WP:advertising. Skywriter (talk) 18:08, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

It's not exactly advertising, but it is using an article to promote an organization with a tertiary relevance to the article. If this organization is notable per WP:ORG, it can get its own article and a See Also from this article (since there is a connection, however tenuous), but the fact remains that the section is wildly out of place in an article on the history of an landmark civil rights case; there is no reason to discuss a modern day organization connected by an accident of birth. Sections in an article should inform the reader as to the subject of the article; this addition is human interest at best. —ShadowRanger ^(talk|stalk) 18:39, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Great! We concur that the section is not advertising. You contend that the section promotes an organization. A mention is not promotion. Mention is what Wikipedia editors do all the time. The Plessy-Ferguson foundation raised funds to place the marker commemorating Plessy's act of civil disobedience, his arrest, and the Supreme Court decision that followed, along with whatever else is linked to in this article. It is of historic interest that the descendants of the named plaintiffs have moved beyond ancestral interests to embrace corrections to the high court's ill-advised decision. And yes, it is of human interest and of historical interest. There are no WP policies against either. If you have more information from WP:RS that would make this section an article, you are free to create the article. The information that now stands is an interesting postscript to a historic case and surely belongs with this article. Skywriter (talk) 19:52, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't think it's advertising to mention it. But I think the current content is WP:UNDUE on an only-marginally-related topic. Placing a commemorative marker is on-topic. That decendents have done something lately based on this decision is close-to-topic. Other details about that organization are not...that's getting towards the spirit of WP:COATRACKing. Just because some facets of the group or its activities are relevant to topic X I don't think that "anything and everything about the group" is suddenly in-scope for an article specifically about topic X. DMacks (talk) 21:43, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

(unindent)Would you tie the wording in the blanked section directly to what you believe is WP:COATRACKing?

Would you tie the wording in the blanked section directly to what you believe is WP:UNDUE

What wording would you like to see changed?

Thanks. Skywriter (talk) 21:53, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

By sheer relative amount, it adds too much about one extremely small facet to a page about so many aspects of the case. The quote in the second paragraph, actually the whole second paragraph, is pretty redundant with the other content. We don't need to hear their sound-bite, since the meaning behind it (moving on, together) is already discussed in the first. Details surrounding that quote (and in-text notes about the citation) are even less necessary, except for the fact that the families and other relevant players came together (see para 1) to set this plaque (para 3). The first paragraph also seems like a PR mission statement (tone problems). The third paragraph also seems like a self-contained capsule rather than part of a full article about the topic (already know who Plessy was, what he did, etc.) Proposed more concise wording that refocuses on relevance to case and factual description integrated into article:

Keith Plessy and Phoebe Ferguson, descendants of the players on both sides of the Supreme Court case, together founded the Plessy and Ferguson Foundation for Education and Reconciliation to create new ways to teach the history of civil rights through film, art, and public programs to create understanding of this historic case and its effect on the American conscience. In 2009, the Plessy and Ferguson families, along with families joined with a member of the Louisiana Supreme Court placed an historical marker on the corner of Press and Royal Streets, the spot where Homer Plessy was thrown off the railway car and arrested.

DMacks (talk) 22:27, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

(unindent)I fully support editing and tightening, and I do it all the time. However, I do not support deleting references so leave these in.

Please leave this in also as it is factual and of interest to people who live in or visit New Orleans.

The marker was placed on the corner of Press and Royal Streets, marking the spot in 1892 where Homer Plessy was, in an act of planned civil disobedience, thrown off the railway car and arrested.

Thanks. Skywriter (talk) 00:13, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

The references definitely need to stay, I didn't include them (or perhaps some bluelinks) because I didn't yet check to figure out which ones were best to support which statements. I wasn't even sure if this group actually was deeply involved in placing the marker, or was just one of the groups that happened to be present at its unveiling. I changed that wording from the latter sense to the former as it makes this group more relevant to the topic, but I did not look for verification of this stronger claim. The "leave this in" fact you mention already is in the last sentence of my wording. Except for the "in an act of planned civil disobedience," phrase, since that sounded too fluffy and is not relevant here. There's a whole section earlier in the article about his act and motivation if users are interested. DMacks (talk) 18:45, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

References

Overruled by?

Brown v. Board did not overrule this case, it limited it. Plessy is still good law. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.100.112.178 (talk) 22:43, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

The article has a short and uncontentious description (last graph) of decision's fate. I'm going to remove the "overrulled" attribute in the infobox, which is clearly wrong.

The lede is a little squishy on this point too, but not literally wrong. I don't have a subscription to the citation source, so I'll leave it alone for now. Wonderbreadsf (talk) 19:13, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

lots of uncited claims

Hi - this article need a lot of improvement - this content was just edited and looking at it its completely uncited - please feel free to find some WP:RS and replace it or find other citations and rewrite it with the citations. Off2riorob (talk) 18:51, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Background

In Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), the U.S. Supreme Court decided that a Louisiana law mandating separate but equal accommodations for blacks and whites on intrastate railroads was constitutional. This decision provided the legal foundation to justify many other actions by state and local governments to socially separate blacks and whites. Plessy v. Ferguson was overturned in 1954 by Brown v. Board of Education.

The arrest of Homer Plessy (1862-1925) on June 7, 1892, was part of a planned challenge to the 1890 Louisiana Separate Car Act by the Citizens' Committee to Test the Constitutionality of the Separate Car Law, a small group of black professionals in New Orleans. Soon after its organization in 1891, the committee appointed Albion Tourgée its legal representative. After successfully leading a test case in which the Louisiana district court declared forced segregation in railroad cars traveling between states to be unconstitutional, the committee was anxious to test the constitutionality of segregation on railroad cars operating solely within a single state. The committees strategy was to have someone with mixed blood violate the law, which would allow Tourgée to question the law's arbitrariness. Homer Plessy, a native of south Louisiana who could "pass" as white, agreed to be the test case. The committee arranged with the railroad conductor and with a private detective to detain Plessy until he was arrested. When Plessy appeared before the Louisiana district court, the court ruled that a state had the constitutional power to regulate railroad companies operating solely within its borders and concluded that the Louisiana Separate Car Act was constitutional. The decision was appealed to the state supreme court in 1893 and was appealed again to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1896.

By the time Plessy v. Ferguson arrived at the Supreme Court, Tourgée and his colleagues had solidified their strategy. Tourgée argued that Plessy was denied his equal protection rights under the Fourteenth Amendment and violated the Thirteenth Amendment by perpetuating the essential features of slavery.

Eight of the nine justices were unconvinced by Tourgée's arguments, and ruled that neither the Thirteenth nor Fourteenth Amendment was applicable in this case. The majority opinion delivered by Henry Billings Brown, attacked the Thirteenth Amendment claims by distinguishing between political and social equality. According to this distinction, blacks and whites were politically equal (in the sense that they had the same political rights) but socially unequal (blacks were not as socially advanced as whites):

Legislation is powerless to eradicate racial instincts or to abolish distinctions based on physical differences, and the attempt to do so can only result in accentuating the differences of the present situation. If the civil and political rights of both races be equal, one cannot be inferior to the other civilly or politically. If one race be inferior to the other socially, the Constitution of the United States cannot put them on the same plane.

The majority also attacked Tourgée's Fourteenth Amendment claims by arguing that enforced separation does not "stamp" blacks with the badge of inferiority, because both blacks and whites were treated equally under the law--in the sense that whites were forbidden to sit in a railroad car designated for blacks. In his famous dissenting opinion, John Marshall Harlan attacked the constitutionality of the Louisiana law and argued that while the law may appear to treat blacks and whites equally, "every one knows that the statute in question had its origin in the purpose, not so much to exclude white persons from railroad cars occupied by blacks, as to exclude colored people from coaches occupied by or assigned to white persons."

The majority decision in Plessy v. Ferguson served as the organizing legal justification for racial segregation for over 50 years.

Inappropriate Tag

"The case" has three unique references cited in the text, contrary to what one might think from the tag at the top of it. It is a bit lacking, but it still has citations. 69.146.97.94 (talk) 23:47, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

I've removed the tag from that section, and revised the tag at the top of the page to request more footnotes throughout the article. The tag you referred to was clearly outdated, so thanks for calling attention to it.--JayJasper (talk) 04:51, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Justice Harlan and the Chinese

In the section "The Decision" it is said that Juctice Harlan viewed the Chinese race as inferior, and seems to base this solely on a single quote: "There is a race so different from our own that we do not permit those belonging to it to become citizens of the United States. Persons belonging to it are, with few exceptions, absolutely excluded from our country. I allude to the Chinese race." While it is my personal opinion that this is a pretty racist statement, it does not qualify as evidence that Harlan saw the Chinese as inferior. By pointing out that a Chinese man is able to ride alongside a white man, he's actually saying that black men, inferior or not, should be treated the same way. 129.3.139.125 (talk) 06:35, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

I just noticed this while reading, and marked it as needing a citation. I'm not sure if it's a fair reading of Harlan's dissent anyway. I think it can be read as Harlan noting that Chinese people were treated as inferior as a matter of federal law, and yet the state treated blacks as more inferior still, and therefore it violated the 14th Amendment. In any case, it's only cited to the opinion itself, so the interpretation (as well as the significance of the quote to the subject) needs to be cited to something else. In fact, this bothers me so much that I'm going to have to check a biography of Harlan. If this specific part of his dissent is discussed it might merit inclusion. Otherwise... I'm not so sure. I think the entire quote might even merit removal. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 21:22, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Hmm. Looks like this is dealt with in much greater depth in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898), which involved the citizenship of a Chinese-American born in San Francisco. Justice Fuller's dissent, which Justice Harlan joined, does contain several points arguing about the differences of Chinese culture versus western culture... which... yeesh... really go to show how little we understood East Asian society at the time.

At any rate, directly attributable to Harlan are quotes from a contemporaneous lecture he gave, in which he argued that things like exclusion legislation had kept the Chinese in the Western US from "root[ing] out the American population". It's cited to a 1999 biography of Harlan, The Republic According to John Marshall Harlan. I'm still going to have to take a look at it. Maybe there is a citation we can use for this article. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 21:48, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Przybyszewski, who has written a Harlan biography, and was involved in the publication of Malvina Harlan's memoirs, actually seems to provide some support to the view that Harlan didn't see the races as equal. At any rate, she cites as examples of commentators examining Harlan's Plessy dissent in light of the Chinese exclusion cases: Maltz, Eric (1996). "Only Partially Color-Blind: John Marshall Harlan's View of Race and the Constitution". Georgia State L. Rev. 12: 973.; Chin, Gabriel J. (Oct. 1996). "The Plessy Myth: Justice Harlan on the Chinese Cases". Iowa L. Rev. 82: 151. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help) Przybyszewski herself argues that in the quoted passage, Harlan "juxtaposes a race kept alien by national law with a race he considered central to the Union's history. Black Louisianans perhaps had risked their lives to preserve the Union, whereas Chinese Americans had no role in his version of the country's history." Przybyszewski, Linda (1999). The Republic According to John Marshall Harlan. Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press. p. 121. ISBN 0807847895. Curiouser and curiouser. So it's likely that, as a matter of WP:DUE, some commentary on Wong Kim Ark is merited here, as well as academic commentary on Plessy in light of Harlan's statements. Nonetheless, I think it's pretty likely that the bulk of the commentary on Plessy will focus elsewhere, and per WP:BALASPS discussion of Harlan's beliefs are probably best kept in the subsection and in the article on him. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 00:05, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

And Maltz's article does not disappoint. Very ringing critique of Harlan's stance on civil rights. So that brings up the question of how we should address the issue here. Thus far (though I haven't really looked), I haven't found support for the reading I presented above, though I really don't think what I've found supports an unqualified "Harlan considered the Chinese inferior". Instead, I think I'm going to go with attributing it. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 00:26, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Change an image

Update the beginning of the Plessy v. Ferguson#Overview section by removing File:Plessy marker.jpg which and adding File:Homer Plessy Tomb Plaque New Orleans.jpg between the 1st and second paragraphs. Thank you in advance. 72.244.204.27 (talk) 08:11, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

The result would look something like the following:

Overview

In 1890, the state of Louisiana passed a law (the Separate Car Act) that required separate accommodations for blacks and whites on railroads, including separate railway cars. Concerned, a group of prominent black, creole, and white New Orleans residents formed the Comité des Citoyens (Committee of Citizens) dedicated to repeal the law. They eventually persuaded Homer Plessy to participate in an orchestrated test case. Plessy was born a free man and was an "octoroon" (someone of seven-eighths Caucasian descent and one-eighth African descent). However, under Louisiana law, he was classified as black, and thus required to sit in the "colored" car.

Plaque on the crypt of Homer Plessy, located in Saint Louis Cemetery in New Orleans. The plaque provides an overview of Plessy's role in the case.

On June 7, 1892, Plessy bought a first class ticket at the Press Street Depot and boarded a "whites only" car of the East Louisiana Railroad in New Orleans, Louisiana, bound for Covington, Louisiana. The railroad company, which opposed the law on the grounds that it would require the purchase of more railcars, had been informed already as to Plessy's racial lineage. Additionally, the committee hired a private detective with arrest powers to detain Plessy, to ensure he was charged for violating the Separate Car Act, as opposed to a vagrancy or some other offense. After Plessy had taken a seat in the whites-only railway car, he was asked to vacate it and sit instead in the blacks-only car. Plessy refused and was arrested immediately by the detective. As planned, the train was stopped and Plessy was taken off the train at Press and Royal streets. Plessy was remanded for trial in Orleans Parish.

It would help if you'd explain why you favor this image over the existing one. They both look okay to me. Rivertorch (talk) 05:39, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Not done for now: Since you haven't replied in 12 days, I'm closing this as a decline. The current image looks slightly better to me. You should feel free to reopen this request if you'd like to provide a rationale for your proposed change or if you want a third opinion. Rivertorch (talk) 16:16, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Incomplete sentence

" But, by the statute in question, a Chinaman can ride in the same passenger coach with white citizens of the United States, while citizens of the black race in Louisiana, many of whom, perhaps, risked their lives for the preservation of the Union", he wrote.[12]"

Yes it seems obvious where that sentence was going (perhaps only concluding "cannot"), but I'd like to see the way he did end it. I'll try to look it up, but with me, that pretty much means, optimistically, maybe within a month, so if anyone agrees and has the time and energy, please do it. GcT (talk) 10:38, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Plessy v. Louisiana?

since this was a criminal action, would it not have been louisiana v. plessy at trial, rather than vice versa as cited in the text?Toyokuni3 (talk) 16:23, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

Springer Encyclopedia of Cultural Psychology

The article on Plessy v. Ferguson in the Springer Encyclopedia of Cultural Psychology[3] seems to incorporate uncited material from this article. The reason I believe the plagiarism is in the encyclopedia is that their article is dated to 2010 whereas the tet in question was already in this article in 2006. Also the same author seems to have lifted text from our article on African American Vernacula English into the Springer Encyclopedia article on "Ebonics".

It is these paragraphs:

"When the Reconstruction area [sic] abruptly ended in 1877, Southern state governments began passing Jim Crow laws that prohibited Blacks from using the same public accommodations as Whites. In the Civil Rights Cases of 1883, the Supreme Court ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment only applied to the actions of state governments and did not apply to private individuals. The result of this ruling was that persons were not protected against individuals or private entities that violated their civil rights. In particular, the Supreme Court invalidated most of the Civil Rights Act of 1875—a law passed by Congress to protect Blacks from private acts of discrimination." -Springer

— Springer

"But when Reconstruction abruptly ended in 1877 and federal troops were withdrawn, southern state governments began passing Jim Crow laws that prohibited blacks from using the same public accommodations as whites. The Supreme Court had ruled, in the Civil Rights Cases (1883), that the Fourteenth Amendment only applied to the actions of state governments, not to those of private individuals, and consequently did not protect persons against individuals or private entities who violated their civil rights. In particular, the Court invalidated most of the Civil Rights Act of 1875, a law passed by Congress to protect Blacks from private acts of discrimination." -Wikipedia

— Wikipedia

"In 1890, Louisiana passed a law that required separate accommodations for Whites and Blacks on railroads, which included separate railway cars. In response, several citizens, both Black and White, formed an association dedicated to the repeal of that law. Homer Plessy, who was seven-eighths White and one-eighth Black and could “pass” as white." - Springer

— Springer

"In 1890, the State of Louisiana had passed a law that required separate accommodations for blacks and whites on railroads, including separate railway cars. Concerned, several black and white citizens in New Orleans formed an association dedicated to the repeal of that law. They persuaded Homer Plessy, who was one-eighth black (an octoroon in the vocabulary of the day), to test it. In 1892, Plessy purchased a first-class ticket on the East Louisiana Railway from New Orleans."-wikipedia

Just wanted to put this here on the talk so noone mistakenly thinks that the article is plagiarizing the Springer Encyclopedia when the reverse seems to be the case.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 01:34, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

"Earlier Cunningham had fought to restore white supremacy during Reconstruction.[11]"

The link not working so I remove the line.KevinFrom (talk) 12:18, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Implied vs. Explicit Overruling

Cnzx has raised doubts about the status of Plessy. Let's list what we've found here.  White Whirlwind  咨  01:13, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

• "At a formal level, Chief Justice Warren failed to announce in 1954 that Brown had overruled the 1896 decision. Court watchers noted the omission. If not in Brown, some said, then the 1896 decision was overruled two years later in Gayle v. Browder, which invalidated city-ordered segregation of buses in Montgomery, Alabama. But again the Court did not explicitly reject Plessy, filing only a short per curiam opinion that rested on Brown. As of mid-1986, Shepard's Citations, the standard "finding aid" used by lawyers to trace subsequent judicial treatment of decisions, listed no case as having overruled Plessy. By then, though, some judges took a different view, commenting almost in passing that the 1954 decision had overturned the earlier ruling." Lofgren (1987), pp. 204–5.

Shows that the overruling(s) is/are, at the very least, of an implied nature. This is a quite authoritative source in its field, and was very favorably reviewed at its publication.  White Whirlwind  咨  01:30, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

• Many texts cite the district court's majority opinion in Browder (later affirmed by the Supreme Court), which states, "In fact, we think that Plessy v. Ferguson has been impliedly, though not explicitly, overruled[...]" (142 F. Supp. 707, 717)

• "It is also ironic that Brown v. Board of Education, which allegedly repudiated the Plessy doctrine [...] never explicitly overruled Plessy." Postema (2013), p. 2.

@White whirlwind: I don't assert that Brown explicitly overruled Plessy -- I'm saying that Brown was an implicit, de facto overrule; while Browder was an explicit, de jure overrule. These sources I found seem to state that Browder was an explicit overrule of Plessy:

• Divergent Paths: The Academy and the Judiciary by Richard Posner -- a district court in Browder explicitly "declared defunct" Plessy, a finding which SCOTUS affirmed on appeal
• On the Supreme Court: Without Illusion and Idolatry -- footnote 154 states that "Browder v. Gayle explicitly [overruled] Plessy"
• Gov't Publishing Office

—cnzx (talk • contribs) 01:57, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I see. I think the sources I've found cast some doubt on the "Plessy:implied::Browder:explicit" idea. See the Lofgren excerpt in the particular. I'll look for more. Maybe we'll end up having to change the text to express that there is some confusion in the literature on Plessy's precise status. For what it's worth, I just checked Key and Shepard's and they only list Brown as a warning or overruling opinion.  White Whirlwind  咨  02:14, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

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The file Plessy marker.jpg on Wikimedia Commons has been nominated for deletion. View and participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. Community Tech bot (talk) 21:58, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

North/South

I didn't make the edit removing the South/North distinction, it was made by an IP but I reviewed and approved it as a pending change. I don't know why it is being restored as a "controversial edit". The wording is extremely sloppy, and this distinction has no "significance" - the US Supreme Court's rulings are the same in the North and South. A discussion of the historical effects should be in a section called "historical aftermath" or something. It also puts a lot of emphasis on the South and makes it sound like school segregation was a Northern concern, it was not, as we well know from Little Rock school segregation was also an issue in the South. This is just an explanation of why I approved the edit in the first place - I hope this was not some longstanding dispute, as I didn't see any indication of that from a brief check of the history. Seraphim System ^(talk) 01:49, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

the IP was misleading--the mention of segregated schools in Massachusetts and pennsylvania left out the dates--they were pre-civil war and pre 14th amendment, and the segregation no longer was legal there in 1890s. Rjensen (talk) 02:16, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

I'm the IP who did the edit (I'm at work; I was at home; different IP addresses), and schools (defacto) and neighborhoods and public beaches (de jure) were segregated in Michigan, where I grew up, until and somewhat beyond the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Check the deed on your house and see if it doesn't say the "property may not be sold or rented to any member of the negro race - illegal 1964" or something to that effect. Mine does. Where you lived determined where you went to school, and as of 1975, there were three exactly black kids in my Jr. high school (8th and 9th grade) that had about 800 students.

I edited out "in the South," because it sounds as if the original author had the impression that racial segregation was a Southern thing. It emphasizes something that deserves no emphasis. The idea fits with the popular culture narrative, but it is inconsistent with the facts. Racism and segregation were poisonous in the industrial North as well. The further problem I have with "in the South" in the first sentence is that "in the North" is used in the second sentence. The paragraph itself contains the information that segregation existed in the North and South, so neither one needs to be mentioned. Segregation existed in America, and the first big nationwide step toward its abolition, everywhere, didn't take place until 1954 (Brown v. Board of Education), 58 years after Plessy v. Ferguson.

I propose removing "in the South" and "in the North" on that basis. I did not consider this a "controversial edit," so I did not go to the talk page the discuss it with the owners of this "free encyclopedia that is based on a model of openly editable content." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.128.4.31 (talk) 16:59, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

all the RS emphasized the distinction between de facto and de jure segregation. De facto means informal, private action, as in property deeds. De Jure means government imposed laws. Plessy only applies to de jure segregation, stating that it did not violate the 14th amendment. Historically. de jure was by far the favorite tool for segregation in the South, but was rare in the north. In Brown the issue was not a state law but the actions of the Board of Education of Topeka, which counts as de jure. Rjensen (talk) 13:55, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Inconsistent date-argued information

Justia[4] says argued April 18 decided May 18 in the syllabus but argued April 12 decided May 17 in the sidebar summary. That's the only source I see that lists May 17, so I likewise don't put weight on their April 12 claim. Court Listener[5] and Google Scholar[6] say argued April 13 whereas Cornell LII[7] and Oyez[8] say argued April 18. FindLaw[9] has no argued-date. I could imagine 13 vs 18 is an OCR or manual reading/transcribing typo. But which should be listed in the infobox? Are there any contemporaneous newspaper articles or other refs? DMacks (talk) 18:32, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

What law was it?

That the law required segregated railway cars should be revealed in the Introduction--instead of being described mysteriously as "the Louisiana law" as many as four times, and using other generalities. The casual reader will wonder. My own remedy - https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Plessy_v._Ferguson&oldid=905110340 was peremptorily reverted by - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:White_whirlwind, on the grounds that specifying the law was "too granular." On the contrary, the casual reader will wish to know. I invite a reply here by the reverter. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cab.jones (talk • contribs) 05:26, 7 July 2019 (UTC) It looks good now, thanks to addition by White whirlwind. Cab.jones (talk) 21:45, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

Hello. I know I am really late to the party but the question posed is one I believe I can answer. Many southern states were appalled with the policies of reconstruction and racial equality and foamed at the mouth at the thought of taking reconstruction down. The Separate Car Act of Louisiana was crafted and signed with the deliberate intention to segregate black passengers and its authors hoped it would make its way to the supreme court. The US Supreme Court would rule in favor of segregation making segregation not just legal in Louisiana but in all US states.

Disputed: Inaccuracies in "Trial" subsection

I tried to correct several inaccuracies in the "Background: Trial" section, but @Beauty School Dropout: instructed me to come here to resolve the dispute first. Here are the inaccuracies.

1. Per the Law Library of Louisiana, Plessy's criminal trial was State v. Homer Adolph Plessy, not Homer Adolph Plessy v. The State of Louisiana. In American legal nomenclature, the defendant's name always comes second; Plessy was the defendant in the criminal case, so Homer Adolph Plessy v. The State of Louisiana cannot be correct.

2. I highly doubt the validity of the claim that "Plessy was convicted and sentenced to pay a $25 fine" by Ferguson in 1892. While Justia's contextual "Facts" section says that "Plessy was convicted and fined [by Ferguson]," the site doesn't provide any citations for the claim, and the consensus of the historians I've found seems to be that Plessy was not actually convicted and fined until 1897. His lawyers petitioned Ferguson to rule on the constitutionality of the Separate Car Act, and when Ferguson determined the law to be constitutional, the legal team sought a writ of prohibition to halt the criminal trial (see Charles Lofgren's The Plessy Case p.42, Keith Weldon Medley's We As Freemen p.162-168, and Harvey Fireside's Separate and Unequal p. 121; Fireside explicitly says that Plessy's lawyers "appl[ied] for a writ of prohibition...to prevent the actual criminal trial of Plessy from going forward in Judge Ferguson's court" (121). After the SCOTUS decision, Plessy returned to Ferguson's court where he changed his plea to guilty and was fined (see Lofgren p. 208, Fireside p. 229, Medley p. 207-208, and Plessy's NYT obituary; Medley quotes directly from the 1897 record from the trial, showing that Plessy was sentenced and fined in 1897, not 1892).

3. Plessy did not "immediately" seek a writ of prohibition; his attorney petitioned for a writ of prohibition four days after Ferguson's ruling (per Lofgren p. 42).

If someone knows more about how the writ of prohibition worked in this case or has access to other sources that refute what I've laid out, please weigh in! 2601:410:200:41C0:DC5D:1D6A:C9BD:F425 (talk) 20:24, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

One additional note in regards to point #2: The New York Times saw fit to issue a correction on their "Overlooked No More" article about Plessy's life. The correction at the bottom of the article reads: "An earlier version of this obituary misstated how Judge John Howard Ferguson handled Plessy's case in criminal court. He chose not to hold a trial. He did not find Plessy guilty." If the NYT's fact checkers are correct, Plessy could not have been "convicted and sentenced to pay a $25 fine" in 1892 as Justia and the current version of this article state. 2601:410:200:41C0:DC5D:1D6A:C9BD:F425 (talk) 22:37, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Browder v. Gayle and Keys v. Carolina Coach Co.

I don't really feel comfortable making such a big change to the article myself, but as these are the cases that actually overruled Plessy regarding segregation on public transport, they should definitely get some coverage in this article. --Eldomtom2 (talk) 12:59, 27 June 2022 (UTC)