New Orleans History -- Lake Pontchartrain
Thursday, December 05, 2024
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1896 Plessy vs. Ferguson



 

Homer Plessy, a New Orleans man who represented a group of citizens
challenging the segregation of public facilities claimed that it was
unconstitutional and that it violated the rights set forth in the 14th
Amendment. Four years after its initial hearing in Louisiana, the case of
Plessy vs. Ferguson went before the United States Supreme Court. In a
landmark decision handed down on May 17, 1896, the Court upheld the Louisiana
statute, thereby making the doctrine of 'separate but equal' the law of the land
for nearly 60 years, until it was overturned in 1954 in Brown v. Topeka Board
of Education
.


 

Pictured is The court room of the Louisiana
State Supreme Court located in the Cabildo -- the room where the
case was heard before it was sent to the U.S. Supreme Court.


 

Source: href="http://nutrias.org/~nopl/upcoming/past1999/plessy.htm'>http://nutrias.org/~nopl/upcoming/past1999/plessy.htm"

href='http://nutrias.org/~nopl/upcoming/past1999/plessy.htm'>http://nutrias.org/~nopl/upcoming/past1999/plessy.htm