Nearly 130 years after he was ejected from a “whites-only” wagon in New Orleans and arrested, a Creole man can finally get Criminal records are deleted for violating Louisiana’s “separate but equal” racial segregation laws.
Homer Plessy’s the name is known to generations of activists, law students and school children for being the subject of the Supreme Court’s landmark 1896 decision, Plessy sues Ferguson, which institutionalized racism throughout the United States after the Civil War.
Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards is considering pardoning Plessy at the unanimous recommendation of state pardon board last week. Plessy, a shoemaker, was arrested and indicted after he sat in a white-only train compartment as part of ongoing protests against racism under new state law. promulgate.
“It is long overdue. It’s time ”, Marc Morial, president of National Urban League and a former New Orleans mayor who supported the amnesty. “It’s part of a long story of injustice that we will long fight to correct.”
At the time Plessy objected, Louisiana law required that blacks and whites sit separately. Plessy, who was described in court papers as being “one-eighth African in blood,” argued that different treatment of whites and blacks was racist and illegal.
Under Civil Rights Act of 1866, anyone born in the United States enjoyed the same rights as white Americans, including slaves freed after the Civil War. But those rights began to erode as Reconstruction failed and Southern states began enacting “Black Codes” that restricted black Americans’ ability to work, travel, and eat in homes. goods for white people only.
Working with activists, Plessy intentionally broke state law in part because he was a light Negro. A conductor told him he needed to move to the “colored” section of the train, and Plessy was arrested when he refused. Plessy pleaded not guilty and appealed to the Supreme Court through the courts, which ultimately upheld the Louisiana law, ruling against Plessy.
The court said: “If one race is socially inferior to another, the Constitution of the United States cannot place them on the same level.”
The decision allows states, cities and businesses to bar blacks from using the same buses, hotels, parks and schools as white Americans. A Supreme Court with another panel of judges in 1954 overturned that ruling through Brown’s decision against the Topeka Board of Education, paving the way for the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which banned discrimination. based on race, sex, skin color and more.
In 1897, Plessy pleaded guilty to violating the Private Vehicle Act and was fined $25. He died in 1925.
The Louisiana Board of Pardons on Friday unanimously recommended pardons at the request of the families of both Plessy and Judge John Ferguson, who handled the case. Respected in part by Plessy’s arrest and subsequent Supreme Court ruling, activists founded the NAACP in 1909 and inspired Rosa Parks in 1955 to challenge the public bus system. separate community in Montgomery, Alabama.
Adam Winkler, a professor of constitutional law at UCLA Law School in Los Angeles, said of Plessy’s ruling: “This case represents too much evil and too much wrong with race relations in America. . “The pardon serves as a reminder of our past and present contributions to those missteps. It is powerful to see the entire Plessy and Ferguson family come together in the process. this.”
Morial said the pardon shows that Plessy is “a patriot like him.”
“It is symbolic, but it makes sense because what it does for a younger generation is it strengthens their will to fight injustice,” he said.
Black activists say it is important to recognize Plessy’s willingness to violate unjust laws, which they say has been crucial in forcing social change for generations.
“What I love so much about it is that it was planned: It was the same way we protest, occupy and march today,” said Chivona Newsome, co-founder of Greater New York’s Black Lives Matter.
Newsome, who also co-founded a Montessori K-2 school in the Bronx, said students there are taught about Plessy’s role, along with the longstanding racial inequality faced by people of color in the United States. .
“We have five-year-olds who know this. It’s amazing how many things they can handle,” Newsome said of students at Wildflower Charter School in the Bronx. “Racism is ingrained in the flesh and blood of America. We’ve seen this with George Floyd and we’ve seen this with the Kyle Rittenhouse trial. It’s quite the American way of disenfranchised. of non-whites.”
Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy, a Republican, said much has changed in Louisiana and in the country over the past century.
He pointed out that the United States had its first African-American president, its first African-American vice president, and there were several black elected officials in Louisiana, including New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell.
“Symbolism is an important milestone that shows how advanced our state has been,” says Cassidy.
He also noted that a number of segregated organizations were previously headed by African-Americans.
“All of those things are good things,” Cassidy said. “It’s the governor’s decision, but I think it would be a milestone if he chooses.”
Melanie Campbell, president of the National Coalition for Black Involvement, said the ongoing fight to remove Confederate statues and flags around the country showed racial discrimination. how deeply ingrained: While many whites see them as a way to honor Southern history, many black Americans see those symbols as a salute to slavery and the associated oppression. inextricably linked with Southern heritage.
Campbell said the pardon for Plessy acknowledges his efforts and the struggles black citizens have faced.
“We had to fight the whole time in this country,” she said. “We had to fight for our rights. We had to fight against oppression. We had to fight for our chance. Every generation has had to fight.”
