Separate Car Act - Testing The Law

Testing The Law

In 1891, under Louis Martinet, a group of activists from New Orleans set up the Citizens Committee to Test the Constitutionality of the Separate Car Law in order to challenge the constitutionality of the law.

The first case the committee decided to test was Daniel Desdunes in 1892. On February 24, Desdunes, a Black man with a first-class ticket, boarded a designated White car on the Louisiana and Nashville Railroad from New Orleans to Montgomery, Alabama. The destination of another state was chosen specifically because of the belief that it violated the Commerce Clause. Desdune's case never went to trial because the Louisiana Supreme Court ruled on May 25 in the unrelated Abbott v. Hicks that the Separate Car Act did not apply to interstate passengers, rendering the test moot.

For their second attempt the group found Homer Plessy, a mostly white "octoroon", who was still considered a "negro" under Louisiana law. On June 7, 1892 Plessy purchased a first-class ticket to take him from New Orleans to Covington on the East Louisiana Railroad, this time both destinations being within the state. Plessy boarded the "white carriage" where the conductor had been informed ahead of time that the light-skinned Plessy was legally Black. The conductor was told by Plessy that he was colored and the conductor had him arrested and charged with violation of the law. The case was brought before John Howard Ferguson—the same judge who had argued the law could not apply to interstate travel in Abbott v. Hicks. Plessy's lawyers argued on the basis 13th and 14th Amendments that their client's rights had been violated. Ferguson ruled that Louisiana was free to regulate such actions and that Plessy was guilty as charged. The Louisiana Supreme Court upheld this decision. Finally, the case ended in the Supreme Court of the United States in Plessy v. Ferguson with the judgment being upheld, leading to the judicial sanction of "separate but equal". This situation lasted for decades.