Homer Plessy was a member of the Comité des Citoyens, a group consisting of African-Americans, whites, and Creoles that advocated equal civil rights to all races. Homer’s paternal grandfather, Germain Plessy, was a white Frenchman born in Bordeaux.
For the rest of his life, Plessy lived quietly in New Orleans, working as a labourer, warehouseman, and clerk.
The group was against the Separate Car Act of 1890 that required train companies to accommodate blacks and whites in 'equal but separate' cars. Nadra Kareem Nittle is a journalist with bylines in The Atlantic, Vox, and The New York Times.
Outside of work, Plessy was an active member of his community. Melvin I. Urofsky is Professor of Law & Public Policy and Professor Emeritus of History at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). His parents, Rosa Debergue and Joseph Adolphe Plessy were part of the New Orleans French-speaking Creole society.
As the train pulled away from the station, the conductor asked Plessy if he was a “colored” man; Plessy said he was, and the conductor told him to move to the appropriate car, which Plessy refused to do. The leadership of Comité des Citoyens asked Plessy if he would be willing to challenge one of Louisiana's Jim Crow laws by boarding the white section of a train car. His parents, Joseph Adolphe Plessy, a carpenter, and Rose Debergue Plessy, were Creole. Homer Plessy (1862–1925) is best known as the plaintiff in the 1896 Supreme Court case Plessy’s contributions to civil rights have not been forgotten.
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The following year, he married Louise Bordenave at St. Augustine Church. Unfortunately, Plessy did not live to see the impact his act of civil disobedience had on civil rights. The Comité des Citoyens lawyers hoped to argue that the Separate Car Act was unconstitutional, but Desdunes’ case was ultimately dismissed because Judge John H. Ferguson said the law didn’t apply to interstate travel. The case would go to the US Supreme Court as Plessy v. Ferguson. When Plessywas seven years, he lost his father.
The racially mixed organization advocated for civil rights, a topic that had interested Plessy since childhood, when his stepfather had been an activist involved in the 1873 Unification Movement to foster racial equality in Louisiana.
Homer Plessy (1862–1925) is best known as the plaintiff in the 1896 Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson, in which he challenged Louisiana's Separate Car Act. At age 30, Plessy joined Comité des Citoyens, which translates to Citizens’ Committee.
Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article.Three years after Plessy’s father died, his widowed mother married a post office clerk from a family of shoemakers.
On June 7, 1892, Plessy bought a ticket on the East Louisiana Railroad and boarded a White passenger car after the conductor was told Plessy was partly African American.
The decision legitimized the many state laws re-establishing racial segregation that had been passed in the American South after the end of the Reconstruction Era (1865–1877). Plessy was not arraigned until October 1892, four months after his arrest, and his attorneys entered a plea claiming that the act was unconstitutional because it imposed a “badge of servitude” in violation of the Plessy failed in court, and his subsequent appeal to the state supreme court (in The Supreme Court ruling that followed on May 18, 1896, and that bore the names of Plessy and Ferguson (Shortly after the Supreme Court decided the case, Plessy reported to Ferguson’s court to answer the charge of violating the Separate Car Act.
Homer Plessy, original name Homère Patrice Adolphe Plessy, (born March 17, 1863, New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.—died March 1, 1925, New Orleans), American shoemaker who was best known as the plaintiff in the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case Plessy v. Plessy told the trainman that he was an American citizen, that he paid for a first-class ticket, and that he intended to ride in the first-class car.
Joseph Adolphe Plessy died in the late 1860s when Homer was a small boy.
The conductor stopped the train, and Detective Christopher Cain boarded the car, arrested Plessy, and forcibly dragged him off the train with the help of a few other passengers. In his honor, the Louisiana House of Representatives and the New Orleans City Council established Homer Plessy Day, first observed on June 7, 2005. He was also influenced by his stepfather’s participation in the Unification Movement, a Plessy’s first venture into social activism came in 1887, when he became involved in education reform as vice president of the On June 7, 1892, Plessy walked into the Press Street Depot in New Orleans, bought a first-class ticket to Covington, and boarded the East Louisiana Railroad’s Number 8 train, fully expecting to be forced off the train or arrested—or both. The couple lived in the Tremé neighborhood, now an important historic site for African American and Créole culture. The Comité des Citoyens lawyers wanted Plessy to test the law next, and they made sure to have him travel on an intrastate train.
Four years later, Keith Plessy, the great-grandson of Homer Plessy’s first cousin, and Phoebe Ferguson, a descendant of Judge John H. Ferguson, started the By using ThoughtCo, you accept ourArticle in the Daily Picayune, New Orleans, announcing the arrest of (Homer) Adolphe Plessy for violation of railway racial segregation law.
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