Separate but Equal, the Court Said. One Voice Dissented.
“The Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson, announced 125 years ago Tuesday, is duly remembered as one of the great abominations in legal history. By endorsing the notorious separate-but-equal doctrine, it consigned most African Americans to a state of rank oppression. In the space of no more than 5,000 words, it violated the plain language of the Constitution, engaged in expansive racist dissembling and defied the outcome of the Civil War,” Peter writes for the New York Times. Read in full here.