Homer Adolph Plessy
Homer Adolph Plessy (March 17, 1862 – March 1, 1925) was a shoemaker and civil rights activist. Plessy identified himself as seven-eighths Caucasian and one-eighth African blood, which would make him "colored" under Louisiana's Jim Crow-era laws. Plessy bought a first-class ticket on the East Louisiana Railroad's Number 8 train. Plessy was removed from the train and arrested for violating Louisiana's racial segregation laws. Plessy took his case all the way to the Supreme Court where the court upheld state imposed segregation laws -- businesses were deemed acceptable if facilities provided services to blacks and whites. This "separate but equal" doctrine was later overturned in
Brown v. Board of Education.Judge John H. Ferguson
John H. Ferguson was a criminal court judge in Louisiana. He was the defendant in Plessy v. Ferguson.
Justice Henry B. Brown
Henry B. Brown (March 2, 1836 – September 4, 1913) was a lawyer and district judge before being appointed to the Supreme Court. He wrote the majority opinion in Plessy v. Ferguson where he upheld state imposed racial segregation in facilities for blacks and whites. He argued recognition of racial differences did not violate Constitutional principle. This was later overturned in
Brown v. Board of Education.Image courtesy of Library of Congress
Justice John Marshall Harlan
John Marshall Harlan (June 1, 1833 – October 14, 1911) was a lawyer, civil rights activist and Supreme Court Justice (1877-1911). Justice Harlan was the sole dissenter in the Civil Rights Cases of 1883 that took down the Civil Rights Act of 1875. He is referred to as the "Great Dissenter" and is one of the most influential dissenters in the Court's history. His role as an early white advocate of African-American rights stemmed from his family's slave-owning history and his relationship with his mixed-race half-brother Robert.
Image courtesy of Library of Congress