We As Freemen: Plessy v. Ferguson - Hardcover

Keith Medley

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1589801202 ISBN 13: 9781589801202

Publisher: Pelican Publishing Co. (US), 2003

Synopsis

In June 1892, a thirty-year-old shoemaker named Homer Plessy bought a first-class railway ticket from his native New Orleans to Covington, north of Lake Pontchartrain. The two-hour trip had hardly begun when Plessy was arrested and removed from the train. Though Homer Plessy was born a free man of color and enjoyed relative equality while growing up in Reconstruction-era New Orleans, by 1890 he could no longer ride in the same carriage with white passengers. Plessy's act of civil disobedience was designed to test the constitutionality of the Separate Car Act, one of the many Jim Crow laws that threatened the freedoms gained by blacks after the Civil War. This largely forgotten case mandated separate-but-equal treatment and established segregation as the law of the land. It would be fifty-eight years before this ruling was reversed by Brown v. Board of Education. Keith Weldon Medley brings to life the players in this landmark trial, from the crusading black columnist Rodolphe Desdunes and the other members of the Comit des Citoyens to Albion W. Tourgee, the outspoken writer who represented Plessy, to John Ferguson, a reformist carpetbagger who nonetheless felt that he had to judge Plessy guilty.

About this title

From the Back Cover

"This absorbing narrative makes an important contribution to the literature on that notorious 1896 United States Supreme Court case, Plessy v. Ferguson."
-Journal of Southern History

"Medley's detailed history stands on its own as the most complete historical accounting of one of the Court's most infamous decisions."
-Law & Politics Book Review

In June 1892, Homer Plessy bought a first-class railway ticket from New Orleans to Covington. His trip had hardly begun when Plessy was arrested and removed from the train. Though Homer Plessy was born a free man of color and enjoyed relative equality while growing up in Reconstruction-era New Orleans, by 1890 he could no longer ride in the same carriage with white passengers. Plessy's act of civil disobedience was designed to test the constitutionality of the Separate Car Act, one of the many Jim Crow laws that threatened the freedoms gained by blacks after the Civil War. This largely forgotten case established segregation as the law of the land and prefigures both Rosa Parks' defiance of bus segregation in Alabama and the legal arguments of Brown v. Board of Education.

Jacket art by Louise Mouton Johnson

About the Author

Born in New Orleans, Keith Weldon Medley grew up in the Faubourg Marigny not far from where Homer Plessy lived. He attended St. Augustine High School and graduated from Southern University at New Orleans with a BA in sociology and psychology. A two-time recipient of publication initiative grants from the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, Medley has published articles in American Legacy, Louisiana Cultural Vistas, the New Orleans Times-Picayune, and other periodicals. We as Freemen: Plessy v. Ferguson is expanded from an article he wrote for Smithsonian. Medley is the author of Black Life in Old New Orleans, also published by Pelican.

Edition details

• Publisher: Pelican Publishing Co. (US)
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 1589801202
• ISBN 13: 9781589801202
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 256