Kathleen Flynn

NEW ORLEANS, (Reuters) –Louisiana’s governor posthumously pardoned Homer Plessy on Wednesday. He was the plaintiff in the 1896 U.S. Supreme Court case which upheld “separate yet equal” and established legal precedents for years of racial discrimination.

Governor John Bel Edwards signed the pardon during a New Orleans ceremony near where Plessy was held in 1892. He had been arrested for riding in a train car that only whites could ride. The line traced from this historic case to current racial injustices in U.S. society.

Bel Edwards stated that while the pardon is a significant gesture, it does not erase decades of discrimination and pain. We all know we still have much to do, but the pardon represents a small step towards the right direction.

Following a unanimous state board decision in November, the official act recommends a pardon for Plessy. He was one-eighth Black. Plessy refused to ride in a Blacksonly vehicle in violation of a Jim Crow-era law designed to marginalize Blacks following the Civil War.

Plessy (a shoemaker) was taken into custody immediately. Plessy’s case was brought to Louisiana by Judge John Howard Ferguson. Ferguson ruled against Plessy and set off an event chain that culminated in the 1896 Supreme Court case.

At the event, descendants of Ferguson and Plessy family members were present. Plessy was thirty years old when he was arrested. He pleaded guilty to the charges in 1897 after the Supreme Court decision and received a $25 penalty. In 1925, he died.

Keith Plessy said, “I feel like I’m not touching the ground because my ancestors are transporting me,” a third cousin to Plessy. Homer Plessy today will get his way.”

Plessy and Ferguson were decided by the Supreme Court. They ruled that public facilities of different quality could be offered to different racial groupings as long as the facility was equal in quality.

This ruling established the legal basis to segregate schools and public buildings. It was held up until Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, when the Supreme Court ruled. That case began the end of racial discrimination.

Bel Edwards (Governor) and other speakers said at the event that the pardon highlighted how it was important to recognize and educate people about past injustices as opposed to promoting a clean version of history.

Conservatives in some U.S. school districts have attempted to stop the teaching of concepts from Critical Race Theory, an academic framework that analyzes how racism has shaped American society.

Phoebe Ferguson is a descendant from Judge Ferguson. She stated that “We can’t undo the wrongs done in the past” but she could and should recognize them and take lessons.

(Reporting by Nathan Layne from Wilton, Connecticut; Editing By Tomasz Janowski und Cynthia Osterman).