Plessy v. Ferguson.

The article presents the transcript of the civil rights case Plessy v. Ferguson, presented before the United States Supreme Court in April of 1896. The following facts are established: Homer A. Plessy is a citizen of Louisiana with a mixed descent--7/8 Caucasian and 1/8 African--who sat in a railway car intended for citizens of the white race. Plessy refused to vacate the white-only car and was therefore ejected from the train by the conductor and was arrested for criminally violating an act of the Louisiana General Assembly. That act requires railway companies carrying passengers to provide separate but equal accommodations for white and African American passengers. Justice Henry Billings Brown, in his decision, finds that the act does not conflict with the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery, nor the Fourteenth Amendment, which forbids the abridgment of privileges of U.S. citizens. Justice John Marshall Harlan alone dissents.