FROM VS TO &: A LIVING LEGACY
After meeting through mutual friend and We As Freemen: Plessy v. Ferguson author Keith Weldon Medley, Keith Plessy and Phoebe Ferguson began a partnership that eventually blossomed into the Plessy & Ferguson foundation. Together, they visit k-12 schools, and academic or historical institutions, spreading their message that their mutual history can be a tool to create unity and understanding. By coming together as Plessy and Ferguson, they have seized the opportunity to pick up the torch, keeping history alive, and sharing their vision for true democracy in the 21st century.
A New Take on Old Names
Keith and Phoebe represent the opposing principals in one of the Supreme Court’s landmark decisions, Plessy v. Ferguson , which upheld the constitutionality of Jim Crow laws mandating segregation under the “separate but equal” doctrine. It stood from 1896 until the court’s historic Brown v. Board of Education ruling in 1954.
WHO WAS HOMER PLESSY?
A Creole man of Haitian-French descent. Homer Plessy was born in New Orleans in 1862. He was a shoemaker and an activist in the fight for equal education for Black children. Mr. Plessy lived in the Treme neighborhood along with many Creole families. He became very famous for challenging the Separate Car Law in 1892. Although photography was invented in the 1830s and Homer Plessy lived until 1925, there are no known photographs of him. If you google Homer Plessy, you will find many images attributed to him. But the photo is actually, P.B.S. Pinchback! Who Was PBS Pinchback?
WHO WAS JUDGE FERGUSON?
Born in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, in 1838, John Howard Ferguson later studied law in Boston. He moved to New Orleans in 1865 to start a law practice. In 1892, Ferguson was tapped to be the judge of the Criminal District Court A. Judge Ferguson ruled against Homer Plessy for violating the Separate Car Law that same year. Plessy’s lawyers appealed the case to the Louisiana Supreme court where his decision was upheld, and later petitioned for a writ of error to the US Supreme Court, resulting in the case bearing his and Plessy’s name.