Governor pardons Plessy, of ‘separate but equal’ ruling
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Louisiana’s governor has pardoned the Black man whose 1892 arrest for refusing to leave an all-white railroad car sparked the ruling that cemented “separate but equal” into U.S. law for half a century.
Gov. John Bel Edwards signed the pardon Wednesday in New Orleans.
The state Board of Pardons recommended a posthumous pardon for Plessy in November.
The 30-year-old shoemaker was part of a New Orleans-based organization trying to change a segregation law.
The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed Louisiana’s law in 1896, and such laws came to dominate the South.
Plessy pleaded guilty about eight months later and paid a $25 fine.
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