WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.319 Imagine buying a train ticket knowing full well 00:00:03.319 --> 00:00:05.219 it's going to end in your arrest. Right. And 00:00:05.219 --> 00:00:07.559 like actually taking the step of hiring the detective 00:00:07.559 --> 00:00:09.900 to slap the cuffs on you yourself. Yeah. I mean, 00:00:10.179 --> 00:00:13.380 we are constantly fed this narrative of the accidental 00:00:13.380 --> 00:00:16.620 hero in history. You know, a lone individual 00:00:16.620 --> 00:00:19.899 gets fed up, refuses to move, and miraculously 00:00:20.250 --> 00:00:22.429 the world changes. It's a great story, but it's 00:00:22.429 --> 00:00:25.449 rarely how things actually happen. Exactly. When 00:00:25.449 --> 00:00:27.789 you look at the legal foundation of segregation 00:00:27.789 --> 00:00:30.969 in America, the spark that ignited the most infamous 00:00:30.969 --> 00:00:33.759 Supreme Court case of the 19th century. wasn't 00:00:33.759 --> 00:00:35.899 spontaneous at all. No, not even a little. It 00:00:35.899 --> 00:00:39.020 was a calculated, meticulously engineered production. 00:00:39.859 --> 00:00:42.179 So welcome to today's Deep Dive. We are opening 00:00:42.179 --> 00:00:45.000 up a massive file of historical research centered 00:00:45.000 --> 00:00:48.000 around the 1896 United States Supreme Court case 00:00:48.000 --> 00:00:50.859 Plessy v. Ferguson. And this is the landmark 00:00:50.859 --> 00:00:53.380 ruling that effectively codified the devastating 00:00:53.380 --> 00:00:56.560 separate but equal doctrine. It basically provided 00:00:56.560 --> 00:00:58.759 the legal architecture for systemic segregation 00:00:58.759 --> 00:01:02.130 for, well, over half a century. Right. And our 00:01:02.130 --> 00:01:05.450 mission today is to uncover the really shocking, 00:01:05.930 --> 00:01:08.329 highly orchestrated, behind -the -scenes story 00:01:08.329 --> 00:01:10.329 of this case. Because we're going to examine 00:01:10.329 --> 00:01:13.650 how a brilliant fight for civil equality completely 00:01:13.650 --> 00:01:15.829 backfired in the highest court of the land. And 00:01:15.829 --> 00:01:17.950 for you listening, I mean, it is incredibly easy 00:01:17.950 --> 00:01:20.590 to view historical events as inevitable. Like 00:01:20.590 --> 00:01:22.709 they were just destined to happen. Oh, for sure. 00:01:23.030 --> 00:01:24.709 Hindsight makes everything look like it was a 00:01:24.709 --> 00:01:27.700 straight line. Yeah. But this deep dive will 00:01:27.700 --> 00:01:30.859 reveal how deliberate actions, strategic legal 00:01:30.859 --> 00:01:34.959 choices, and the exploitation of legal loopholes 00:01:34.959 --> 00:01:38.079 actually shaped the reality you live in today. 00:01:38.379 --> 00:01:40.459 Okay, let's unpack this. Let's do it. Because 00:01:40.459 --> 00:01:43.000 the infamous train ride at the absolute center 00:01:43.000 --> 00:01:45.599 of this case was a setup. A total sting operation. 00:01:45.879 --> 00:01:47.959 Let's look at the mechanics of how this incident 00:01:47.959 --> 00:01:50.859 was built from the ground up. So in 1890, the 00:01:50.859 --> 00:01:53.000 Louisiana State Legislature passed a law called 00:01:53.000 --> 00:01:55.920 the Separate Car Act. Right. And this law legally 00:01:55.920 --> 00:01:58.060 mandated separate railroad accommodations for 00:01:58.060 --> 00:02:00.500 black and white passengers. The stated reason 00:02:00.500 --> 00:02:03.560 was supposedly to, quote, promote the comfort 00:02:03.560 --> 00:02:06.060 of passengers. Promote the comfort, yeah. And 00:02:06.060 --> 00:02:08.199 the penalty for sitting in the wrong car was 00:02:08.199 --> 00:02:12.659 either a $25 fine or up to 20 days in prison. 00:02:12.780 --> 00:02:15.939 Wow. And to understand the pushback to this, 00:02:16.460 --> 00:02:18.699 you really have to understand the unique cultural 00:02:18.699 --> 00:02:20.939 landscape of New Orleans at the time. Because 00:02:20.939 --> 00:02:22.379 it wasn't like the rest of the South, right? 00:02:22.680 --> 00:02:25.939 Exactly. Unlike the strict racial binary most 00:02:25.939 --> 00:02:28.340 of the English speaking South, New Orleans had 00:02:28.340 --> 00:02:31.699 a long French and Spanish colonial history. So 00:02:31.699 --> 00:02:34.900 they had maintained a three tiered racial hierarchy. 00:02:35.259 --> 00:02:37.259 Right. So you had white residents, black residents, 00:02:37.460 --> 00:02:40.039 and then this really significant prosperous middle 00:02:40.039 --> 00:02:42.939 class known as free people of color or Creole. 00:02:42.830 --> 00:02:45.169 of color. Yeah, and when the Anglo -American 00:02:45.169 --> 00:02:48.849 legal system tried to forcefully crush that nuanced 00:02:48.849 --> 00:02:51.310 three -tiered society into a strict black and 00:02:51.310 --> 00:02:53.129 white binary. Through laws like the separate 00:02:53.129 --> 00:02:55.449 car act. Right, the local community fought back. 00:02:55.569 --> 00:02:58.110 A group of prominent black creole of color and 00:02:58.110 --> 00:03:00.349 white residents formed a civil rights organization 00:03:00.349 --> 00:03:02.669 called the Comité des Citoyens or the Committee 00:03:02.669 --> 00:03:04.870 of Citizens. And their plan to challenge this 00:03:04.870 --> 00:03:07.599 law was just brilliant. It really was. It was 00:03:07.599 --> 00:03:10.620 essentially a structural stress test of the legal 00:03:10.620 --> 00:03:13.919 system. They wanted to intentionally break the 00:03:13.919 --> 00:03:16.699 law to show where the structural flaws were. 00:03:17.280 --> 00:03:20.080 So they specifically recruited Homer Plessy to 00:03:20.080 --> 00:03:23.439 buy a first -class train ticket on June 7th, 00:03:23.479 --> 00:03:26.599 1892. And Plessy was chosen for a very specific 00:03:26.599 --> 00:03:29.879 reason, right? He was what they called an octoroon. 00:03:30.020 --> 00:03:32.020 Yeah, meaning he was of seven -eighths white 00:03:32.020 --> 00:03:35.319 and one -eighth black ancestry. So he was very 00:03:35.319 --> 00:03:38.199 fair -skinned. But under Louisiana law, he was 00:03:38.199 --> 00:03:40.620 legally classified as black. OK, so this is where 00:03:40.620 --> 00:03:42.580 it gets crazy. What's fascinating here is the 00:03:42.580 --> 00:03:44.620 sheer level of logistical maneuvering behind 00:03:44.620 --> 00:03:46.620 the scenes. I mean, the Committee of Citizens 00:03:46.620 --> 00:03:48.639 didn't just hope Plessy would get arrested. They 00:03:48.639 --> 00:03:51.120 guaranteed it. Exactly. On their exact terms. 00:03:51.360 --> 00:03:53.099 First, they actually colluded with the railroad 00:03:53.099 --> 00:03:55.800 company itself. Wait, the East Louisiana Railroad 00:03:55.800 --> 00:03:57.979 supported him? Yeah, they actively opposed the 00:03:57.979 --> 00:04:00.360 separate car act. But, you know, not necessarily 00:04:00.360 --> 00:04:02.199 out of some deep moral conviction about racial 00:04:02.199 --> 00:04:03.960 equality. Oh, let me guess. It was about money. 00:04:04.060 --> 00:04:06.490 Hit the nail on the head. buying hauling and 00:04:06.490 --> 00:04:09.590 maintaining extra segregated rail cars was incredibly 00:04:09.590 --> 00:04:12.870 expensive. It's a logistical nightmare and just 00:04:12.870 --> 00:04:16.269 bad for business. So the railroad was informed 00:04:16.269 --> 00:04:20.990 beforehand of Plessy's racial lineage and the 00:04:20.990 --> 00:04:23.449 intent. to challenge the law. So the railroad 00:04:23.449 --> 00:04:26.089 company and the civil rights activists are effectively 00:04:26.089 --> 00:04:28.250 co -conspirators. Pretty much. They're working 00:04:28.250 --> 00:04:30.850 together to highlight the sheer absurdity of 00:04:30.850 --> 00:04:33.730 the state forcing train conductors to visually 00:04:33.730 --> 00:04:36.550 classify race on a moving train. Because they 00:04:36.550 --> 00:04:38.889 needed to demonstrate that the law was not only 00:04:38.889 --> 00:04:41.970 unjust, but practically speaking, unenforceable. 00:04:42.069 --> 00:04:44.670 Right. And then they went a step further to control 00:04:44.670 --> 00:04:47.550 the narrative. The committee actually hired their 00:04:47.550 --> 00:04:50.670 own private detective. Wait, I'm stuck here. 00:04:50.670 --> 00:04:53.670 They hired the guy who arrested him. Why not 00:04:53.670 --> 00:04:56.310 just let the local police handle it? Ah, because 00:04:56.310 --> 00:04:58.490 relying on the local police was way too risky. 00:04:58.870 --> 00:05:01.329 If a regular beat cop showed up, they might just 00:05:01.329 --> 00:05:03.730 charge Plessy with generic vagrancy or, like, 00:05:03.829 --> 00:05:05.970 disturbing the peace. Oh, and a disturbing the 00:05:05.970 --> 00:05:07.889 peace charge wouldn't allow Plessy's lawyers 00:05:07.889 --> 00:05:10.149 to challenge the constitutionality of the separate 00:05:10.149 --> 00:05:13.389 car act. Exactly. By hiring their own detective, 00:05:13.870 --> 00:05:16.310 a guy with official arrest powers, and coordinating 00:05:16.310 --> 00:05:18.730 with the railroad, the committee ensured Plessy 00:05:18.730 --> 00:05:21.629 was charged specifically with violating the new 00:05:21.629 --> 00:05:25.370 segregation law. That is so smart. They engineered 00:05:25.370 --> 00:05:28.170 the exact legal parameters they needed for a 00:05:28.170 --> 00:05:31.370 test case. Yes, they did. Okay, so Plessy boards 00:05:31.370 --> 00:05:34.310 the whites -only car at Press Street Depot, refuses 00:05:34.310 --> 00:05:36.769 to move when prompted by the conductor, and the 00:05:36.769 --> 00:05:39.110 hired detective arrests him at the corner of 00:05:39.110 --> 00:05:41.529 Press and Royal Streets. The stress test works. 00:05:41.769 --> 00:05:43.970 They get the charge. Right. But getting into 00:05:43.970 --> 00:05:46.089 the courtroom is one thing. Winning the argument 00:05:46.089 --> 00:05:48.800 is another. Plessy's lawyers argued that the 00:05:48.800 --> 00:05:51.839 law violated the 13th and 14th amendments. But 00:05:51.839 --> 00:05:53.839 the judge presiding over the criminal court, 00:05:54.399 --> 00:05:57.620 Judge John Howard Ferguson, ruled against Plessy. 00:05:57.800 --> 00:06:00.079 Yeah, Ferguson argued that Louisiana had the 00:06:00.079 --> 00:06:02.339 absolute right to regulate railroad companies 00:06:02.339 --> 00:06:04.800 operating strictly within its own state borders. 00:06:04.939 --> 00:06:07.279 And when Plessy appealed to the Louisiana Supreme 00:06:07.279 --> 00:06:10.500 Court, the state justices upheld Ferguson's ruling. 00:06:10.649 --> 00:06:12.970 And the way they justified it is really crucial 00:06:12.970 --> 00:06:16.269 for understanding how segregation became nationalized. 00:06:16.509 --> 00:06:18.250 Yeah. The source points out that the Louisiana 00:06:18.250 --> 00:06:21.149 Supreme Court pointed directly to legal precedents 00:06:21.149 --> 00:06:24.069 from northern states. Which is wild. They cited 00:06:24.069 --> 00:06:27.610 an 1849 case from the Massachusetts Supreme Court 00:06:27.610 --> 00:06:30.689 that legally allowed segregated schools. And 00:06:30.689 --> 00:06:33.310 a Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling that mandated 00:06:33.310 --> 00:06:35.850 separate rail cars. And the Pennsylvania court 00:06:35.850 --> 00:06:39.050 had even explicitly stated that asserting separateness 00:06:39.050 --> 00:06:42.129 is not declaring inferiority, but rather following, 00:06:42.350 --> 00:06:45.209 quote, the order of divine providence. Yeah, 00:06:45.209 --> 00:06:47.529 that fundamentally changes the narrative that 00:06:47.529 --> 00:06:50.189 segregation was purely a Southern invention post 00:06:50.189 --> 00:06:53.050 -Civil War. It really does. The legal groundwork, 00:06:53.050 --> 00:06:55.589 like the actual structural precedent for separate 00:06:55.589 --> 00:06:57.990 but equal, was already being laid in the North 00:06:57.990 --> 00:07:00.649 before the Civil War even ended. Right. So Plessy 00:07:00.649 --> 00:07:03.209 loses at the state level, but taking it up to 00:07:03.209 --> 00:07:05.019 the federal level, was always the ultimate goal 00:07:05.019 --> 00:07:07.040 anyway. But by the time it reaches the United 00:07:07.040 --> 00:07:10.579 States Supreme Court in 1896, the national mood 00:07:10.579 --> 00:07:13.240 has drastically shifted. Yeah. The court issues 00:07:13.240 --> 00:07:16.399 a 7 to 1 decision against Homer Plessy, just 00:07:16.399 --> 00:07:18.740 as Henry Billings Brown writes the majority opinion. 00:07:18.980 --> 00:07:21.389 So what does this all mean? Yeah, how on earth 00:07:21.389 --> 00:07:23.970 did the highest court look at the 14th Amendment's 00:07:23.970 --> 00:07:26.430 equal protection clause? Which literally says, 00:07:26.889 --> 00:07:29.490 no state shall deny to any person the equal protection 00:07:29.490 --> 00:07:33.170 of the laws. Right. And legally justify state 00:07:33.170 --> 00:07:35.470 -mandated segregation. It requires looking at 00:07:35.470 --> 00:07:38.509 a very specific 19th century legal philosophy. 00:07:39.180 --> 00:07:42.279 The Supreme Court relied on a broad interpretation 00:07:42.279 --> 00:07:44.579 of what is called police power. Police power. 00:07:44.819 --> 00:07:47.519 Yeah. In constitutional law, police power is 00:07:47.519 --> 00:07:50.060 a state's inherent authority to pass laws regulating 00:07:50.060 --> 00:07:52.480 the health, safety, and morals of its citizens. 00:07:52.480 --> 00:07:55.139 OK. The Supreme Court gave immense deference 00:07:55.139 --> 00:07:57.500 to the Louisiana state legislature. They essentially 00:07:57.500 --> 00:08:00.379 said, if Louisiana believes that mixing races 00:08:00.379 --> 00:08:03.100 on a train will cause public friction, it is 00:08:03.100 --> 00:08:05.079 entirely reasonable for them to separate the 00:08:05.079 --> 00:08:07.720 races to maintain public peace. See, I need to 00:08:07.720 --> 00:08:10.480 push back on that logic. The 14th Amendment is 00:08:10.480 --> 00:08:12.959 a federal foundational constitutional amendment 00:08:12.959 --> 00:08:15.459 passed after a brutal civil war specifically 00:08:15.459 --> 00:08:18.420 to guarantee equal protection. I just don't understand 00:08:18.420 --> 00:08:21.319 how a state's right to regulate something as 00:08:21.319 --> 00:08:24.379 subjective as passenger comfort or public peace 00:08:24.379 --> 00:08:27.399 can legally override a federal constitutional 00:08:27.399 --> 00:08:29.899 amendment. How did they bridge that gap? They 00:08:29.899 --> 00:08:32.379 bridge that gap by fracturing the very definition 00:08:32.379 --> 00:08:36.019 of equality. How so? The 1896 Supreme Court argued 00:08:36.019 --> 00:08:38.019 that the 14th Amendment was only intended to 00:08:38.019 --> 00:08:41.659 enforce political and legal equality. Oh, meaning 00:08:41.659 --> 00:08:44.860 the right to vote, the right to sit on a jury, 00:08:45.100 --> 00:08:48.120 the right to sue someone in court. Exactly. They 00:08:48.120 --> 00:08:50.419 stated the amendment, quote, could not have been 00:08:50.419 --> 00:08:52.899 intended to abolish distinctions based upon color 00:08:52.899 --> 00:08:56.980 or to enforce social as distinguished from political 00:08:56.980 --> 00:09:00.070 equality. Wow. So in their legal framework, forcing 00:09:00.070 --> 00:09:01.909 people of different races to sit next to each 00:09:01.909 --> 00:09:04.669 other in a rail car was a matter of social equality. 00:09:04.769 --> 00:09:07.169 Right. They viewed it as an unnatural forced 00:09:07.169 --> 00:09:09.570 integration and decided that the Constitution 00:09:09.570 --> 00:09:11.990 had no business dictating social arrangements. 00:09:12.250 --> 00:09:15.250 But Plessy's lead attorney, Albion Tourge, vehemently 00:09:15.250 --> 00:09:17.389 argued against that. I mean, Tourge's main argument 00:09:17.389 --> 00:09:19.389 to the Supreme Court was that segregation isn't 00:09:19.389 --> 00:09:22.429 just about where you sit. No, it inherently implies 00:09:22.429 --> 00:09:25.809 the black people are inferior, permanently branding 00:09:25.809 --> 00:09:28.730 them with a second class status. So how did the 00:09:28.730 --> 00:09:31.570 court respond to that? The court's response to 00:09:31.570 --> 00:09:35.629 Torje's argument is honestly one of the most 00:09:35.629 --> 00:09:37.809 astonishing pieces of legal reasoning in American 00:09:37.809 --> 00:09:40.610 history. Lay it on me. Justice Brown, writing 00:09:40.610 --> 00:09:43.610 for the majority, explicitly stated that if the 00:09:43.610 --> 00:09:47.049 enforced separation of the two races stamps the 00:09:47.049 --> 00:09:50.490 colored race with a badge of inferiority, it 00:09:50.490 --> 00:09:52.629 is, and this is a direct quote from the ruling, 00:09:53.169 --> 00:09:55.779 solely because the colored race chooses to put 00:09:55.779 --> 00:09:57.860 that construction on it. Are you kidding me? 00:09:58.240 --> 00:10:00.460 So the court is essentially arguing a massive 00:10:00.460 --> 00:10:03.440 legal paradox. Like the law itself isn't inherently 00:10:03.440 --> 00:10:05.919 oppressive. You are just choosing to feel oppressed 00:10:05.919 --> 00:10:08.019 by it. That's literally their argument. That 00:10:08.019 --> 00:10:10.720 is an incredible deflection of state responsibility. 00:10:11.039 --> 00:10:13.019 It completely ignores the reality of the power 00:10:13.019 --> 00:10:16.379 dynamics at play. The state passes a law specifically 00:10:16.379 --> 00:10:19.159 targeting a group and then blames that group 00:10:19.159 --> 00:10:22.320 for interpreting the law as discriminatory. It 00:10:22.320 --> 00:10:25.440 is a profound, willful ignorance of reality. 00:10:26.039 --> 00:10:28.740 And that willful ignorance brings us to the lone 00:10:28.740 --> 00:10:31.679 dissenting voice on the court, Justice John Marshall 00:10:31.679 --> 00:10:34.480 Harlan. Right. He earned the historical nickname 00:10:34.480 --> 00:10:37.500 The Great Dissenter for his fiery opinion in 00:10:37.500 --> 00:10:40.340 this case. Harlan rejected the majority's logic 00:10:40.340 --> 00:10:43.620 entirely, and he did it by pointing out a very 00:10:43.620 --> 00:10:46.700 telling loophole written directly into the Louisiana 00:10:46.700 --> 00:10:49.600 law. Right. What loophole? The Separate Car Act 00:10:49.600 --> 00:10:53.320 included a specific exemption for, quote, nurses 00:10:53.320 --> 00:10:56.419 attending children of the other race. Oh, meaning 00:10:56.419 --> 00:10:58.740 black women were legally permitted to sit in 00:10:58.740 --> 00:11:01.340 the white only train car, but only if they were 00:11:01.340 --> 00:11:03.899 acting as nannies for white children. Exactly 00:11:03.899 --> 00:11:06.259 the point Harlan seized upon. He argued that 00:11:06.259 --> 00:11:08.639 this single exception proved the law had absolutely 00:11:08.639 --> 00:11:10.840 nothing to do with keeping the races apart for 00:11:10.840 --> 00:11:13.480 mutual comfort or public peace. Right. Because 00:11:13.480 --> 00:11:16.059 if mixing the races was truly a threat to public 00:11:16.059 --> 00:11:18.740 safety, a nanny would be just as disruptive as 00:11:18.740 --> 00:11:22.120 any other passenger. Yes. Harlan wrote that everyone 00:11:22.120 --> 00:11:24.460 knew the real purpose of the law was to exclude 00:11:24.460 --> 00:11:27.100 colored people from coaches occupied by white 00:11:27.100 --> 00:11:29.600 persons. Ensuring that black people only entered 00:11:29.600 --> 00:11:32.720 white spaces as social subordinates or domestics. 00:11:32.860 --> 00:11:36.519 Exactly. And Harlan is deeply famous for a specific 00:11:36.519 --> 00:11:39.059 phrase he used in that dissent. He wrote that 00:11:39.059 --> 00:11:42.159 the Constitution is, quote, color blind. Right. 00:11:42.419 --> 00:11:44.539 And that in the eye of the law, there is in this 00:11:44.539 --> 00:11:47.600 country no superior dominant ruling class of 00:11:47.600 --> 00:11:50.980 citizens. He boldly predicted that the Plessy 00:11:50.980 --> 00:11:53.240 decision would become just as infamous as the 00:11:53.240 --> 00:11:55.919 Dred Scott case. And he was completely right 00:11:55.919 --> 00:11:59.019 about that. Yeah. His defense of equality is 00:11:59.019 --> 00:12:00.919 celebrated in law schools across the country. 00:12:01.100 --> 00:12:03.220 But here's where it gets really interesting. 00:12:04.039 --> 00:12:06.220 Because history desperately wants to paint these 00:12:06.220 --> 00:12:08.779 figures in simple black and white as flawless 00:12:08.779 --> 00:12:12.279 heroes or absolute villains. But the source material 00:12:12.279 --> 00:12:15.000 reveals a jarring contradiction right in the 00:12:15.000 --> 00:12:17.980 middle of Harlan's famous descent. Right. If 00:12:17.980 --> 00:12:20.019 we connect this to the bigger picture of racial 00:12:20.019 --> 00:12:22.879 attitudes in the 19th century, we see that even 00:12:22.879 --> 00:12:25.779 the most progressive legal minds had profound 00:12:25.779 --> 00:12:29.149 systemic blind spots. Modern legal scholars have 00:12:29.149 --> 00:12:31.429 extensively highlighted a particularly troubling 00:12:31.429 --> 00:12:34.309 passage in Harlan's Plessy dissent. What does 00:12:34.309 --> 00:12:36.710 it say? Well, in the very same document where 00:12:36.710 --> 00:12:39.149 he beautifully argues that the Constitution is 00:12:39.149 --> 00:12:42.049 colorblind regarding black Americans, Harlan 00:12:42.049 --> 00:12:44.690 includes a deeply racist diatribe against the 00:12:44.690 --> 00:12:47.769 Chinese race. Wow. He writes that the Chinese 00:12:47.769 --> 00:12:50.090 race is, quote, so different from our own that 00:12:50.090 --> 00:12:52.250 we do not permit those belonging to it to become 00:12:52.250 --> 00:12:55.149 citizens. and then he uses them as a rhetorical 00:12:55.149 --> 00:12:57.309 prop. Right. He complains about the supposed 00:12:57.309 --> 00:13:00.210 irony that a, quote, Chinaman could ride in the 00:13:00.210 --> 00:13:02.909 same passenger coach with white citizens while 00:13:02.909 --> 00:13:05.350 a black union veteran was forced into a separate 00:13:05.350 --> 00:13:07.629 car. This raises an important question about 00:13:07.629 --> 00:13:10.230 how we interact with historical texts. You know, 00:13:10.230 --> 00:13:12.809 you have to critically examine these celebrated 00:13:12.809 --> 00:13:15.490 documents in their entirety. Absolutely. Harlan 00:13:15.490 --> 00:13:18.450 was advocating for the legal inclusion of black 00:13:18.450 --> 00:13:21.940 Americans by directly contrasting them with another 00:13:21.940 --> 00:13:24.840 minority group he deemed entirely alien and unworthy 00:13:24.840 --> 00:13:27.179 of citizenship. It is a stark demonstration of 00:13:27.179 --> 00:13:29.879 how deeply entrenched white supremacy was at 00:13:29.879 --> 00:13:33.019 the time. It permeated even the very legal arguments 00:13:33.019 --> 00:13:36.000 that were actively trying to dismantle segregation. 00:13:36.240 --> 00:13:38.360 It really vastly complicates the hero narrative. 00:13:38.639 --> 00:13:40.899 So Harlan's prediction about the decision's infamy 00:13:40.899 --> 00:13:44.299 comes true. But the structural stress test fails 00:13:44.299 --> 00:13:46.820 in the courts. The highest court in the land 00:13:46.820 --> 00:13:49.820 has spoken. So how does this ripple out into 00:13:49.820 --> 00:13:52.179 the real world? Well, the immediate aftermath 00:13:52.179 --> 00:13:55.879 for Homer Plessy was incredibly quiet. In 1897, 00:13:56.220 --> 00:13:58.539 a year after the Supreme Court ruling, he went 00:13:58.539 --> 00:14:00.740 back to Judge Ferguson's criminal court in New 00:14:00.740 --> 00:14:03.820 Orleans, changed his plea to guilty, and paid 00:14:03.820 --> 00:14:06.419 his $25 fine. And the Committee of Citizens? 00:14:06.720 --> 00:14:09.059 Having lost their massive high -stakes Supreme 00:14:09.059 --> 00:14:12.200 Court gamble, they disbanded shortly after. But 00:14:12.200 --> 00:14:14.019 for the rest of the country, the floodgates had 00:14:14.019 --> 00:14:16.299 just been thrown wide open. Because the Plessy 00:14:16.299 --> 00:14:18.600 ruling effectively granted state legislators 00:14:18.600 --> 00:14:21.639 absolute immunity to implement Jim Crow laws 00:14:21.639 --> 00:14:24.120 without fear of federal intervention. The federal 00:14:24.120 --> 00:14:26.259 government essentially handed the South a blank 00:14:26.259 --> 00:14:29.639 check. Big time. From 1890 to 1908, southern 00:14:29.639 --> 00:14:32.259 states convened conventions to entirely rewrite 00:14:32.259 --> 00:14:34.500 their state constitutions. They used the legal 00:14:34.500 --> 00:14:37.059 cover provided by the Supreme Court to systematically 00:14:37.059 --> 00:14:39.720 disenfranchise black voters. Right. And notably, 00:14:40.240 --> 00:14:42.799 these sweeping laws disenfranchised tens of thousands 00:14:42.799 --> 00:14:45.149 of poor white voters as well. Wait, how did they 00:14:45.149 --> 00:14:47.590 do that without violating the 15th Amendment? 00:14:47.789 --> 00:14:50.169 Well, since the 15th Amendment prohibited denying 00:14:50.169 --> 00:14:53.029 the vote based on race, the states instituted 00:14:53.029 --> 00:14:56.570 complex, seemingly race -neutral voter registration 00:14:56.570 --> 00:14:59.909 rules. Oh, like... poll taxes and literacy tests. 00:15:00.350 --> 00:15:03.110 Exactly. They utilized poll taxes, property tests, 00:15:03.470 --> 00:15:05.870 and these labyrinthine literacy tests that were 00:15:05.870 --> 00:15:08.309 administered entirely at the discretion of white 00:15:08.309 --> 00:15:11.250 polling staff. The result was that African -American 00:15:11.250 --> 00:15:15.049 community leaders who had made incredible, hard 00:15:15.049 --> 00:15:17.149 -won political gains during the Reconstruction 00:15:17.149 --> 00:15:20.230 era were completely excised from the political 00:15:20.230 --> 00:15:22.330 system. Yeah, but the source material makes it 00:15:22.330 --> 00:15:24.899 clear this wasn't just isolated to the American 00:15:24.899 --> 00:15:28.080 South. Right. The Jim Crow practices spread rapidly 00:15:28.080 --> 00:15:30.379 northward and westward, especially accelerating 00:15:30.379 --> 00:15:32.659 during the Great Migration. The entire country 00:15:32.659 --> 00:15:35.399 saw the rise of segregated educational facilities, 00:15:36.080 --> 00:15:38.919 housing covenants, hotels, beaches, and harsh 00:15:38.919 --> 00:15:40.980 restrictions on interracial marriage. And the 00:15:40.980 --> 00:15:43.139 Supreme Court kept consistently backing it up. 00:15:43.309 --> 00:15:47.370 They sure did. In a 1927 case called Lum V. Rice, 00:15:47.950 --> 00:15:50.070 the Supreme Court upheld the right of a Mississippi 00:15:50.070 --> 00:15:53.470 public school district to exclude a Chinese American 00:15:53.470 --> 00:15:56.629 girl from a white school, explicitly using the 00:15:56.629 --> 00:15:59.610 Plessy Doctrine as their justification. The ruling 00:15:59.610 --> 00:16:01.570 infected everything. Right. But we have to talk 00:16:01.570 --> 00:16:04.850 about the equal part of separate but equal because 00:16:04.850 --> 00:16:07.289 legally the facilities were supposed to be the 00:16:07.289 --> 00:16:10.940 same. Yeah. How did the courts justify the obvious 00:16:10.940 --> 00:16:13.440 glaring disparities in everyday life. Because 00:16:13.440 --> 00:16:15.720 the pretense of equal was nothing more than a 00:16:15.720 --> 00:16:17.960 legal fiction. Right. In reality, facilities 00:16:17.960 --> 00:16:20.299 for non -whites were intentionally underfunded, 00:16:20.700 --> 00:16:23.240 completely substandard, or they simply did not 00:16:23.240 --> 00:16:26.159 exist at all. States provided crumbling buildings, 00:16:26.539 --> 00:16:29.299 outdated textbooks, and practically zero supplies 00:16:29.299 --> 00:16:31.539 for black schools. But mechanically, how did 00:16:31.539 --> 00:16:33.879 they get away with it? Because no state actually 00:16:33.879 --> 00:16:36.019 wrote the phrase separate but equal into their 00:16:36.019 --> 00:16:37.970 statutes. They just wrote the separate part. 00:16:38.269 --> 00:16:41.370 Wow. Therefore, there was no obvious state law 00:16:41.370 --> 00:16:44.049 to point to if you wanted to sue for equal funding. 00:16:44.309 --> 00:16:46.429 So if you wanted to challenge the lack of funding, 00:16:46.570 --> 00:16:48.210 you couldn't just go to a local judge. You'd 00:16:48.210 --> 00:16:50.950 have to mount another massive federal case all 00:16:50.950 --> 00:16:53.570 the way back up to the U .S. Supreme Court. Which 00:16:53.570 --> 00:16:55.389 had already declared they wouldn't interfere 00:16:55.389 --> 00:16:58.509 with the state's police powers. Precisely. States 00:16:58.509 --> 00:17:01.789 faced absolutely zero federal consequences for 00:17:01.789 --> 00:17:04.049 this systemic inequality. The federal government 00:17:04.049 --> 00:17:07.029 turned a blind eye. It wasn't until the monumental 00:17:07.029 --> 00:17:08.990 efforts of the civil rights movement and the 00:17:08.990 --> 00:17:12.450 Brown v. Board of Education ruling in 1954 that 00:17:12.450 --> 00:17:15.410 the Supreme Court finally ruled that segregation 00:17:15.410 --> 00:17:18.630 in public education is inherently unequal. Yeah, 00:17:18.650 --> 00:17:22.470 that 1954 ruling finally began dismantling Plessy 00:17:22.470 --> 00:17:25.230 as a legally binding precedent. So the legal 00:17:25.230 --> 00:17:28.000 precedent of Plessy v. Ferguson is dead. But 00:17:28.000 --> 00:17:30.920 the historical wounds, the generational trauma 00:17:30.920 --> 00:17:33.680 from decades of state -sanctioned, institutionalized 00:17:33.680 --> 00:17:36.099 oppression, those don't just vanish when a new 00:17:36.099 --> 00:17:38.160 ruling is handed down. No, they definitely don't. 00:17:38.299 --> 00:17:40.779 How do communities process a historical anchor 00:17:40.779 --> 00:17:43.819 that heavy? It requires an active process of 00:17:43.819 --> 00:17:46.940 reckoning and reconciliation. And a truly profound 00:17:46.940 --> 00:17:48.839 example of that happened recently in New Orleans. 00:17:48.920 --> 00:17:52.779 Oh, really? Yeah. In 2009, descendants from both 00:17:52.779 --> 00:17:56.420 sides of that 1896 courtroom came together. Keith 00:17:56.420 --> 00:17:59.589 Plessy? a descendant of Homer Plessy's cousin, 00:18:00.230 --> 00:18:02.410 and Phoebe Ferguson, the great -great -granddaughter 00:18:02.410 --> 00:18:04.789 of Judge John Howard Ferguson. Wait, they teamed 00:18:04.789 --> 00:18:07.269 up? Yeah, they established the Plessy and Ferguson 00:18:07.269 --> 00:18:09.549 Foundation for Education and Reconciliation. 00:18:10.130 --> 00:18:12.170 The descendants of the oppressed and the descendants 00:18:12.170 --> 00:18:15.349 of the legal oppressor turning a deeply painful 00:18:15.349 --> 00:18:18.589 adversarial history into a joint foundation for 00:18:18.589 --> 00:18:21.599 civil rights education. That is a massive course 00:18:21.599 --> 00:18:23.660 correction. It's incredible. They've dedicated 00:18:23.660 --> 00:18:25.440 their work to creating a modern understanding 00:18:25.440 --> 00:18:27.599 of the case's effect on the American conscience. 00:18:27.640 --> 00:18:30.759 Wow. That same year, they formed the foundation. 00:18:31.339 --> 00:18:33.519 A historical marker was finally placed at the 00:18:33.519 --> 00:18:35.960 corner of press and royal streets where Plessy 00:18:35.960 --> 00:18:38.420 was first arrested. That's amazing. And then 00:18:38.420 --> 00:18:42.099 in early 2022, Louisiana Governor John Bell Edwards 00:18:42.099 --> 00:18:44.920 officially granted Homer Plessy a posthumous 00:18:44.920 --> 00:18:47.250 pardon. A pardon for a crime that should never 00:18:47.250 --> 00:18:49.509 have existed in the first place. Understanding 00:18:49.509 --> 00:18:52.670 the raw mechanics of Plessy v Ferguson is so 00:18:52.670 --> 00:18:55.650 critical for you today. It proves that monumental 00:18:55.650 --> 00:18:58.250 shifts in society, both the terrible regressions 00:18:58.250 --> 00:19:01.589 and the progressive leaps, often start with highly 00:19:01.589 --> 00:19:04.609 localized, strategically engineered actions. 00:19:05.130 --> 00:19:07.170 The Committee of Citizens didn't wait for a spark. 00:19:07.269 --> 00:19:10.130 They built the engine themselves. Right. And 00:19:10.130 --> 00:19:12.569 studying the Supreme Court's horrific logic from 00:19:12.569 --> 00:19:15.990 1896 arms you with the critical thinking needed 00:19:15.990 --> 00:19:18.130 to question reasonable legal arguments today. 00:19:18.130 --> 00:19:20.750 For sure. When a modern court defers heavily 00:19:20.750 --> 00:19:23.430 to a state's right to regulate health, safety, 00:19:23.240 --> 00:19:26.779 and morals or claims the law is perfectly neutral 00:19:26.779 --> 00:19:28.740 and the oppression is just in the minds of the 00:19:28.740 --> 00:19:31.579 marginalized, you now have the historical context 00:19:31.579 --> 00:19:34.160 to recognize exactly where that legal architecture 00:19:34.160 --> 00:19:36.359 comes from. It gives you a road map. Exactly. 00:19:36.680 --> 00:19:38.700 We're about to wrap up. But before we go, I want 00:19:38.700 --> 00:19:41.039 to leave you with one final detail to chew on, 00:19:41.299 --> 00:19:43.180 a detail from our source material that completely 00:19:43.180 --> 00:19:45.059 upends how we attribute historical greatness. 00:19:45.180 --> 00:19:47.299 Oh, this is a good one. We spend a lot of time 00:19:47.299 --> 00:19:50.099 today dissecting Justice John Marshall Harlan's 00:19:50.099 --> 00:19:53.119 famous great dissent, where he beautifully argued 00:19:53.119 --> 00:19:56.599 that the Constitution is colorblind. For over 00:19:56.599 --> 00:19:59.059 a century, law students have been taught to revere 00:19:59.059 --> 00:20:01.759 Harlan for penning one of the most famous defenses 00:20:01.759 --> 00:20:04.220 of civil rights in judicial history. But according 00:20:04.220 --> 00:20:06.599 to the research of New Orleans historian Keith 00:20:06.599 --> 00:20:09.779 Weldon Medley, those famous words did not originate 00:20:09.779 --> 00:20:12.740 with Justice Harlan. No, they didn't. Medley 00:20:12.740 --> 00:20:14.920 found that the colorblind argument was actually 00:20:14.920 --> 00:20:17.440 taken directly from the legal briefs filed by 00:20:17.440 --> 00:20:20.220 the Committee of Citizens. That is just wild. 00:20:20.660 --> 00:20:23.279 The 19th century's most famous judicial defense 00:20:23.279 --> 00:20:25.990 of civil rights wasn't authored by an enlightened 00:20:25.990 --> 00:20:28.730 Supreme Court justice sitting on a bench in Washington. 00:20:29.170 --> 00:20:31.450 It was written by the very citizens in New Orleans 00:20:31.450 --> 00:20:34.269 who were being actively oppressed. Yeah. The 00:20:34.269 --> 00:20:36.210 structural stress tests they engineered didn't 00:20:36.210 --> 00:20:38.789 have the ending they wanted, but they successfully 00:20:38.789 --> 00:20:41.450 smuggled their voice, their exact words, into 00:20:41.450 --> 00:20:43.730 the permanent historical record of the United 00:20:43.730 --> 00:20:47.049 States. Consider who actually authors our history. 00:20:47.190 --> 00:20:48.670 Thanks for joining us on this deep dive.