The Violation of a Constitutional Right

On June 7, 1892, Homer Plessy boarded an East Louisiana Railroad car reserved for Whites with the intent, not to actually travel aboard the train, to challenge the Jim Crow laws that were the basis for segregation in the South. Plessy’s action was part of a coordinated effort on the part of the Comité des Citoyens (Citizens’ Committee), a group of 18 prominent African American men that had formed in 1891 to challenge Louisiana’s Separate Car Act. Plessy was arrested and placed in jail. Plessy and his lawyers took his legal battle all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which in 1896 ruled against Plessy in the case of Homer A. Plessy v. Ferguson by a vote of 7 to 1 and upheld the doctrine of “separate but equal.” The pamphlet displayed here is an example of the works produced by the Committee to circulate their views on the Separate Car Act.