Plessy V. Ferguson

Before Plessy v. Ferguson, there were separate railway cars for white and colored people. Homer Plessy was convicted of sitting in a whites-only car. He had white parents, but since he had black ancestry he was considered black. He argued that the Louisiana’s Separate Car Act of 1890 violated the Thirteenth Amendment, which required all people to be treated equally under the law. Therefore, the Court upheld this act, however, Justice Henry Brown claims that the abolition of slavery did not prevent states from making legal distinctions between races (Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), page 511). Based on Document 4, Separate Accommodation states that railway companies carrying passengers, they shall provide equal but separated accommodations for the