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{{short description|1896 U.S. Supreme Court case on racial segregation}}
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{{Use American English|date=May 2022}}
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|NotParticipating = Brewer
|LawsApplied = [[Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|U.S. Const. amends. XIII]], [[Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|XIV]]; [[Separate Car Act|1890 La. Acts No. 111]], p. 152, § 1
|Overruled = (''de facto'') ''[[Brown v. Board of Education]]'' (1954), and subsequent rulings{{sfnp|Schauer|1997|p=280}}
}}
{{wikisource|Plessy v. Ferguson|''Plessy v. Ferguson''}}
'''''Plessy v. Ferguson''''', 163 U.S. 537 (1896), was a [[List of landmark court decisions in the United States|landmark]] [[Supreme Court of the United States|U.S. Supreme Court]] decision ruling that [[racial segregation]] laws did not violate the [[Constitution of the United States|U.S. Constitution]] as long as the facilities for
The underlying case began in 1892 when [[Homer Plessy]], a mixed-race man, deliberately boarded a whites-only train car in [[New Orleans]]. By boarding the whites-only car, Plessy violated [[Louisiana]]'s [[Separate Car Act
In May 1896, the Supreme Court issued a 7–1 decision against Plessy, ruling that the Louisiana law did not violate the [[Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution]] and stating that although the Fourteenth Amendment established the legal equality of whites and blacks, it did not and could not require the elimination of all "distinctions based upon color". The Court rejected Plessy's lawyers' arguments that the Louisiana law inherently implied that black people were inferior, and gave great deference to American state legislatures' inherent power to make laws regulating health, safety, and morals—the "[[police power (United States constitutional law)|police power]]"—and to determine the reasonableness of the laws they passed. Justice [[John Marshall Harlan]] was the lone dissenter from the Court's decision, writing that the U.S. Constitution "is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens", and so the
''Plessy'' is widely regarded as one of the worst decisions in U.S. Supreme Court history.<ref>{{harvp|Amar|2011|p=76}}; {{harvp|Epstein|1995|p=99}}.</ref> Despite its infamy, the decision has never been explicitly overruled.{{sfnp|Lofgren|1987|pp=204–05}} However
==Background==
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===Harlan's dissent===
[[File:JudgeJMHarlan.jpg|thumb|upright=0.85|
Justice [[John Marshall Harlan]] was the lone dissenter from the Court's decision. Harlan strongly disagreed with the Court's conclusion that the Louisiana railcar law did not imply that black people were inferior, and he accused the majority of being willfully ignorant on the
{{Blockquote
|text=Every one knows that the statute in question had its origin in the purpose, not so much to exclude white people from railroad cars occupied by blacks, as to exclude colored people from coaches occupied by or assigned to white persons. ... The thing to accomplish was, under the guise of giving equal accommodation for whites and blacks, to compel the latter to keep to themselves while traveling in railroad passenger coaches. No one would be so wanting in candor as to assert the contrary.
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To support his argument, Harlan pointed out that the Louisiana law contained an exception for "nurses attending children of the other race". This exception allowed black women who were [[nanny|nannies]] to white children to be in the white-only train cars.{{sfnp|Amar|2011|p=85}} Harlan said that this showed that the Louisiana law only allowed black people to be in white-only cars if it was obvious that they were "social subordinates" or "domestics".{{sfnp|Amar|2011|p=85}}
In a now-famous passage, Harlan forcefully argued that even though many white Americans of the late 19th century considered themselves superior to
{{Blockquote
|text=The white race deems itself to be the dominant race in this country. And so it is in prestige, in achievements, in education, in wealth and in power. ... But in view of the constitution, in the eye of the law, there is in this country no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens. There is no caste here. Our constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law. The humblest is the peer of the most powerful. The law regards man as man, and takes no account of his surroundings or of his color when his civil rights as guaranteed by the supreme law of the land are involved.
|source=''Plessy'', 163 U.S. at 559 (Harlan, J., dissenting).<ref name="ReferenceA">Quoted in part in {{harvp|Chemerinsky|2019|loc=§ 9.3.1, p. 761}}.</ref>
}}
Harlan predicted
==Aftermath==
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==Significance==
[[File:
[[File:JimCrowCar2.jpg|left|upright=1.2|thumb|1904 caricature of "White" and "[[Jim Crow]]" rail cars by [[John T. McCutcheon]]]]Despite the pretense of "separate but equal", non-whites essentially always received inferior facilities and treatment, if they received them at all.<ref>{{cite book|last=McCutheon|first=John |title=The Mysterious Stranger and Other Cartoons|publisher=McClure, Phillips & Co.|date=1905}}</ref>{{page needed|date=May 2021}}
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===Plessy and Ferguson Foundation===
In 2009, Keith Plessy and Phoebe Ferguson, descendants of participants on both sides of the 1896 Supreme Court case, announced
In 2009, a marker was placed<ref name=plessy&ferg>{{cite news|url=http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2009/02/plessy_vs_ferguson_photo.html|title=Plessy and Ferguson unveil plaque today marking their ancestors' actions|last=Reckdahl|first=Katy|newspaper=[[The Times-Picayune]]|date=February 11, 2009}}</ref> at the corner of Press and Royal
{{Clear}}
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* [http://landmarkcases.c-span.org/Case/19/Plessy-v-Ferguson ''Plessy v. Ferguson''] from [[C-SPAN]]'s ''[[Landmark Cases: Historic Supreme Court Decisions]]''
* [https://www.newspapers.com/topics/reconstruction/plessy-v-ferguson/ Newspaper articles and clippings about ''Plessy v. Ferguson'' at Newspapers.com]
* [https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/the-road-to-separate-but-equal.htm#:~:text=The%20rights%20stated%20in%20the%20Fourteenth%20Amendment%20have,as%20long%20as%20it%20was%20%E2%80%9Cseparate%20but%20equal.%E2%80%9D/ ''The Road to 'Separate But Equal'''] from the [[National Park Service]]
* [https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/plessy-v-ferguson/ Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)] from the [[National Archives and Records Administration]]
{{Civil rights movement}}
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