Louisiana pardons Homer Plessy, who brought historic segregation case

Jan. 5 (UPI) -- Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards signed a posthumous pardon Wednesday for Homer Plessy, who lost an 1896 Supreme Court challenge to the state's segregation laws.

"There is no expiration date on justice," Edwards tweeted along with a photo of him signing the pardon.

Plessy pleaded guilty on Jan. 11, 1897, to sitting in a Whites-only train car as part of a protest. That was after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Louisiana's segregation law under the "separate but equal" doctrine, which held it was legal to enforce separation of races as long as the separate accommodations were equal.

In 1896, the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled in Plessy vs. Ferguson that such laws did not violate the U.S. Constitution.

Keith Plessy, a Homer Plessy descendant, told Time he became emotional when he heard the news of the pardon.

"My left eye gave up, and a tear just rolled down the side of my face," he said, "It felt like I was not standing on my feet. It's surreal."

Homer Plessy was a Black Creole man who was charged with violating Louisiana's Separate Car Act of 1890 when he refused to leave the train car..

In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Plessy vs. Ferguson in Brown vs. Board of Education, ruling that segregation laws were unconstitutional.

Descendants of the parties in the Plessy case united to push for the posthumous pardon.

The Orleans Parish District Attorney applied for the pardon Nov. 5 under a 2006 Louisiana law allowing people or their descendants convicted of breaking segregation laws to apply for pardons.