Homer Plessy (1863-1925) was the plaintiff of Plessy v. Ferguson, the Supreme Court decision that legalized segregation and created the doctrine of separate but equal. Plessy, a very light-skinned man who could pass as white, was the son of "free people of Color." In 1887, he became a vocal advocate for public school reform. In 1892, he agreed to be the plaintiff in a test case challenging segregation on trains. According to Wikipedia: "On June 7, 1892, Plessy, then twenty-nine years old, and resembling in skin color and physical features a Caucasian or white male, bought a first-class ticket on the East Louisiana Railroad . . . and sat in the 'whites-only' passenger car. When the conductor came to collect his ticket, Plessy told him that he was 7/8 white and that he refused to sit in the 'blacks-only' car. Plessy was immediately arrested by Detective Chris C. Cain, put into the parish jail, and released the next day on a $500 bond." The Supreme Court held in 1896 that Lousiana's segregation laws were, in fact, constitutional stating: " If the two races are to meet upon terms of social equality, it must be the result of voluntary consent of the individuals." The doctrine of Plessy was the law until 1954 when it was invalidated by Brown v. Board of Education.
Upon his death, Plessy was remembered in a newspaper obituary as a loving husband.
