{"id":61503,"date":"2021-09-15T02:06:33","date_gmt":"2021-09-15T02:06:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=61503"},"modified":"2021-09-15T15:18:37","modified_gmt":"2021-09-15T15:18:37","slug":"plessy-v-ferguson-an-excerpt-from-firsthand-louisiana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=61503","title":{"rendered":"Plessy v. Ferguson: An Excerpt from Firsthand Louisiana"},"content":{"rendered":"

Plessy v. Ferguson<\/strong>: An Excerpt from Firsthand Louisiana<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

University of Louisiana at Lafayette Press<\/a>
\n2020-08-13<\/p>\n

Devon Lord<\/strong><\/a>, Editor In Chief<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Discover the history of the Pelican State<\/a> through the eyes of the people who lived it and shaped its course. In Firsthand Louisiana: Primary Sources in the History of the State<\/em><\/a>, historians Janet Allured<\/a>, John Keeling<\/a>, and Michael Martin<\/a> have compiled dozens of important, interesting, devastating, and even entertaining firsthand accounts cover Louisiana\u2019s<\/a> history along with questions for further analysis and discussion. Below is an excerpt concerning the Plessy v. Ferguson<\/em><\/a> Supreme Court decision and its impact on Louisiana and the nation as a whole.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

1896:<\/strong>PLESSY V. FERGUSON<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The most important United States Supreme Court<\/a> case to originate in Louisiana<\/a> is Plessy v. Ferguson<\/em><\/a>, which in 1896 affirmed the constitutionality of southern segregation<\/a> laws. In 1890 the Louisiana legislature passed the state\u2019s first segregation bill, the Separate Car Act<\/a>, which required that railroads provide separate cars for white and black passengers. As a state senator from St. John the Baptist Parish<\/a>, Henry Demas<\/a> was one of four remaining African American Republicans in that chamber. In response to the act, leading members of the Afro-Creole<\/a> community in New Orleans<\/a> formed the Comit\u00e9 des Citoyens<\/em><\/a> (Citizens Committee) to challenge the legality of the act. On June 7, 1892, Homer Plessy<\/a> bought a first-class train ticket from New Orleans to Covington<\/a> and boarded the white passenger car. A private detective hired by the committee ensured that the conductor had him arrested for violating the Separate Car Act, and the test case began. After losing both in a local court and the Louisiana Supreme Court<\/a>, the case was appealed to the US Supreme Court. In a 7\u20131 decision, the Court upheld the constitutionality of the Separate Car Act, asserting, among other points, that it was a reasonable exercise of the state\u2019s police power to maintain the health, safety, and morals of its citizens. Associate Justice John Marshall Harlan<\/a>, however, saw through the reasoning behind the law and the majority opinion, and declared in the most famous dissenting opinion in the history of the Court that the decision established second-class citizenship for African Americans in the South<\/a>. Through the \u201cseparate but equal<\/a>\u201d rule, that accommodations for each race had to be roughly the same in quality, Jim Crow laws<\/a> came to dominate southern race relations until overturned fifty-eight years later by Brown v. Board of Education<\/em><\/a>…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Plessy v. Ferguson: An Excerpt from Firsthand Louisiana University of Louisiana at Lafayette Press 2020-08-13 Devon Lord, Editor In Chief Discover the history of the Pelican State through the eyes of the people who lived it and shaped its course. In Firsthand Louisiana: Primary Sources in the History of the State, historians Janet Allured, John […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,459,1467,369,8,20],"tags":[31886,1447,31889,31890,31892,31891,1438,579,31887,26375],"class_list":["post-61503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-history","category-law","category-louisiana","category-media-archive","category-usa","tag-devon-lord","tag-homer-plessy","tag-janet-allured","tag-john-keeling","tag-john-r-keeling","tag-michael-martin","tag-new-orleans","tag-plessy-v-ferguson","tag-separate-car-act","tag-university-of-louisiana-at-lafayette-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=61503"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61503\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61507,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61503\/revisions\/61507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=61503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=61503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}