Louisiana enacted the Separate Car Act of 1890, requiring railroads operating within the state to provide "equal but separate" accommodations for white and Black passengers. Homer Plessy, who alleged he was seven-eighths white and one-eighth Black, sat in a car designated for white passengers on an intrastate trip and refused to move when ordered to the car assigned to Black passengers. He was arrested and challenged the statute as violating the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments. The Louisiana courts upheld the law, and Plessy sought review in the U.S. Supreme Court.
Does a state law requiring separate but equal railway accommodations for white and Black passengers on intrastate rail travel violate the Thirteenth Amendment or the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?
The Thirteenth Amendment abolishes slavery and involuntary servitude, not every legal distinction based on race. The Fourteenth Amendment enforces legal equality, but, as the majority framed it, does not forbid state laws requiring racial separation in public facilities if the accommodations are equal and the law is a reasonable exercise of the state police power.
No. The Court held that Louisiana’s Separate Car Act was constitutional because enforced racial separation in railway cars did not itself constitute slavery or deny equal protection so long as the separate accommodations were equal.
Justice Brown reasoned that the Thirteenth Amendment addressed slavery and involuntary servitude, not laws creating racial distinctions in public accommodations. On the Fourteenth Amendment, the Court distinguished political and civil equality from what it called "social equality," concluding that mandatory separation of the races did not necessarily stamp either race with a badge of inferiority. The majority treated the statute as a valid exercise of the state’s police power over intrastate rail transportation and relied on prior acceptance of segregated schools and transportation arrangements. It further stated that if segregation was perceived as denoting inferiority, that meaning arose from the affected race’s interpretation rather than from the law itself.
Justice John Marshall Harlan dissented, arguing that the Constitution is "color-blind" and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. He contended that the statute was designed to exclude Black citizens from equal civil freedom, was inconsistent with the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments, and would become as pernicious as Dred Scott.
Plessy constitutionalized the "separate but equal" doctrine and became the central judicial foundation for Jim Crow segregation for decades. It was repudiated in practice by Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), which held that separate educational facilities are inherently unequal, and later rejected more broadly by cases applying strict scrutiny to racial classifications. Closely related authorities include The Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3 (1883); Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U.S. 303 (1880); Louisville, New Orleans & Texas Railway Co. v. Mississippi, 133 U.S. 587 (1890); and Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954).
Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954) |
Abstain |
109 U.S. 3 (1883) |
Abstain |
Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U.S. 303 (1880) |
Abstain |
New Orleans & Texas Railway Co. v. Mississippi, 133 U.S. 587 (1890) |
Abstain |
Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954) |
Abstain |
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