Editing Plessy v. Ferguson (section)

==Background==
===Legal background and incident===
In 1890, the [[Louisiana State Legislature]] passed a law called the [[Separate Car Act]], which required separate accommodations for blacks and whites on Louisiana railroads.<ref name="credoreference1">{{cite encyclopedia|url=http://www.credoreference.com/entry/jhueas/plessy_v_ferguson|title=Plessy v. Ferguson|encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of American Studies|date=2010|access-date=December 22, 2012|url-access=subscription}}</ref> The law required passenger train officers to "assign each passenger to the coach or compartment used for the race to which such passenger belongs". It also made it a [[misdemeanor]] for any passenger to "insist on going into a coach or compartment to which by race he does not belong," punishable by either a $25 fine or up to 20 days in prison.

A group of prominent black, [[Louisiana Creole people|creole of color]], and white creole [[New Orleans]] residents formed a civil rights group called the [[Comité des Citoyens]] (Committee of Citizens). The group was dedicated to repealing the Separate Car Act and fighting its implementation.<ref name=freemen>{{Cite book|last=Medley|first=Keith Weldon|title=We As Freemen: Plessy v. Ferguson: The Fight Against Legal Segregation|publisher=[[Pelican Publishing Company]]|year=2003|url=https://archive.org/details/weasfreemenpless00medl|isbn=978-1-58980-120-2|access-date=May 1, 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090304180142/http://www.pelicanpub.com/PDF/1589801202-fm.pdf|archive-date=March 4, 2009}}</ref> The Comité eventually persuaded [[Homer Plessy]], a man of [[mixed race]] who was an "[[octoroon]]" (person of seven-eighths white and one-eighth black ancestry), to participate in an orchestrated [[test case (law)|test case]] to challenge the Act. Plessy had been born a free man and was fair-skinned. However, under Louisiana law, he was classified as black, and thus required to sit in the "colored" car.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Koffi N|first=Maglo|title=GENOMICS AND THE CONUNDRUM OF RACE: some epistemic and ethical considerations |journal=Perspectives in Biology and Medicine |volume=53 |issue=3 |date=Summer 2010 |id={{ProQuest|733078852}}}}</ref>

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]].<ref>{{cite web|title=Plessy v. Ferguson (No. 210)|url=https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0163_0537_ZS.html|publisher=Legal Information Institute|access-date=October 4, 2011}}</ref> The railroad company, which had opposed the law on the grounds that it would require the purchase of more railcars, had been previously informed of Plessy's [[Race (human categorization)|racial]] lineage, and the intent to challenge the law.<ref name=plessy&ferg/> Additionally, the Comité des Citoyens hired a private detective with arrest powers to detain Plessy, to ensure that he would be charged for violating the Separate Car Act, as opposed to vagrancy or some other offense.<ref name=plessy&ferg/> After Plessy took 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.<ref>{{cite web|title=Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)|url=https://www.pbs.org/wnet/supremecourt/antebellum/landmark_plessy.html|publisher=PBS|access-date=October 5, 2011}}</ref> As planned, the train was stopped, and Plessy was taken off the train at Press and Royal streets.<ref name=plessy&ferg/> Plessy was remanded for trial in Orleans Parish.<ref name=Opinion>{{ussc|name=Plessy v. Ferguson|163|537|1896}}.</ref>

===Trial===
Plessy petitioned the state district criminal court to throw out the case, ''State v. Homer Adolph Plessy'',<ref>{{Cite web |date=May 19, 2021 |title=Plessy v. Ferguson: Litigation |work=Law Library of Louisiana |url= https://lasc.libguides.com/c.php?g=906254&p=6540181 |access-date=January 17, 2022}}</ref> on the grounds that the state law requiring East Louisiana Railroad to segregate trains had denied him his rights under the [[Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Thirteenth]] and [[Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fourteenth]] amendments of the United States Constitution,<ref name="jstor1973">{{cite journal|last=Maidment|first=Richard A.|title=Plessy v. Ferguson Re-Examined|journal=Journal of American Studies|volume=7|number=2|date=August 1973|pages=125–132|doi=10.1017/S0021875800013396|jstor=27553046|s2cid=145390453}}</ref> which provided for equal treatment under the law. However, the judge presiding over his case, [[John Howard Ferguson]], ruled that Louisiana had the right to regulate railroad companies while they operated within state boundaries. Four days later, Plessy petitioned the [[Louisiana Supreme Court]] for a [[writ of prohibition]] to stop his criminal trial.<ref name=Opinion/>{{sfnp|Lofgren|1987|pp=42}}

===State appeal===
The Louisiana Supreme Court issued a temporary writ of prohibition while it reviewed Plessy's case. In December 1892, the court upheld Judge Ferguson's ruling,{{sfnp|Elliott|2006|p=270}} and denied Plessy's attorneys' subsequent request for a rehearing.{{sfnp|Lofgren|1987|p=43}}<ref>{{cite news |last1=Gates |first1=Henry Louis |title='Plessy v. Ferguson': Who Was Plessy? |url=https://www.pbs.org/wnet/african-americans-many-rivers-to-cross/history/plessy-v-ferguson-who-was-plessy/ |access-date=27 October 2021 |work=PBS}}</ref> In speaking for the court's decision that Ferguson's judgment did not violate the 14th Amendment, Louisiana Supreme Court Justice [[Charles Erasmus Fenner]] cited a number of precedents, including two key cases from Northern states. The Massachusetts Supreme Court had ruled in 1849—before the 14th amendment—that segregated schools were constitutional. In answering the charge that segregation perpetuated race prejudice, the Massachusetts court famously stated: "This prejudice, if it exists, is not created by law, and probably cannot be changed by law."<ref>''[[Sarah C. Roberts v. City of Boston]]'', 59 Massachusetts 198, 5 Cush. 198 (Massachusetts S.J.C. 1848).</ref> The law itself was repealed five years later, but the precedent stood.<ref name="JimCrowLaws-p30">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5q5yXP8AdNEC&pg=PA30|title=Jim Crow laws|last=Tischauser|first=Leslie V.|date=2012|publisher=Greenwood|location=Santa Barbara, California|isbn=978-0-313-38609-1|page=30}}</ref>

In a Pennsylvania law mandating separate railcars for different races the Pennsylvania Supreme Court stated: "To assert separateness is not to declare inferiority ... It is simply to say that following the order of Divine Providence, human authority ought not to compel these widely separated races to intermix."<ref>{{cite book|author=H. W. Brands|title=American Colossus: The Triumph of Capitalism 1865–1900|location=New York|publisher=Random House|date=2010|pages=463–464}}</ref><ref name="JimCrowLaws-p30"/>

===Supreme Court appeal===
Undaunted, the Committee appealed to the United States Supreme Court.<ref name="jstor1973"/> Two legal briefs were submitted on Plessy's behalf. One was signed by [[Albion W. Tourgée]] and James C. Walker and the other by [[Samuel F. Phillips]] and his legal partner F. D. McKenney. Oral arguments were held before the Supreme Court on April 13, 1896. Tourgée and Phillips appeared in the courtroom to speak on behalf of Plessy.<ref name=Opinion/>
Tourgée built his case upon violation of Plessy's rights under the [[Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|13th Amendment]], prohibiting slavery, and the [[Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|14th Amendment]], which states "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." Tourgée argued that the reputation of being a black man was "property", which, by the law, implied the inferiority of African Americans as compared to whites.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Gordon |first1=Milton M. |title=Enforcing Racial Segregation; It Is Viewed as Violating the Rights of All Americans |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1954/01/03/archives/enforcing-racial-segregation-it-is-viewed-as-violating-the-rights.html |work=The New York Times |date=3 January 1954 }}</ref> The state legal brief was prepared by [[Attorney General of Louisiana|Attorney General]] [[Milton Joseph Cunningham]] of [[Natchitoches, Louisiana|Natchitoches]] and New Orleans. Cunningham was a staunch supporter of [[white supremacy]], who according to a laudatory 1916 obituary "worked so effectively [during Reconstruction] in restoring white supremacy in politics that he finally was arrested, with fifty-one other men of that community, and tried by federal officials."<ref>{{cite news|title=Milton Joseph Cunningham, Obituary|work=Times Picayune|date=October 20, 1916}}, cited in {{cite web|url=http://www.genealogy.com/users/m/e/t/Mildred-Methvin/WEBSITE-0001/UHP-0108.html|title=Milton Joseph Cunningham|publisher=genealogy.com|author=Mimi Methvin McManus|date=May 29, 2003|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141006092257/http://www.genealogy.com/users/m/e/t/Mildred-Methvin/WEBSITE-0001/UHP-0108.html|archive-date=October 6, 2014|access-date=October 2, 2014}}</ref>