In Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), the U.S. Supreme Court decided that a Louisiana law mandating separate but equal accommodations for blacks and whites on intrastate railroads was constitutional. This decision provided the legal foundation to justify many other actions by state and local governments to socially separate blacks and whites. Plessy v. Ferguson was overturned in 1954 by Brown v. Board of Education.
The arrest of Homer Plessy (1862-1925) on June 7, 1892, was part of a planned challenge to the 1890 Louisiana Separate Car Act by the Citizens' Committee to Test the Constitutionality of the Separate Car Law, a small group of black professionals in New Orleans. Soon after its organization in 1891, the committee appointed Albion Tourgée its legal representative.