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How did Homer Plessy’s mixed ancestry relate to the legal challenge against the Separate Car Act?

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Plessy v. Ferguson judgment — Plessy v. Ferguson *Plessy* v. *Ferguson* judgment, issued by the U.S. Supreme Court on May 18, 1896, advancing the controversial “separate but equal” doctrine for assessing the constitutionality of racial segregation laws.

Homer Plessy’s mixed ancestry was central to the legal strategy used to challenge the Separate Car Act. As a light-skinned Creole who could easily pass for white, Plessy was chosen by the Citizens’ Committee to Test the Constitutionality of the Separate Car Act specifically to highlight the absurdity and legal complexity of racial classification.12

Plessy described himself as "seven-eighths Caucasian and one-eighth African blood," yet he was still classified as "colored" under the 1890 law. By intentionally boarding a first-class car reserved for white passengers, his attorneys aimed to demonstrate that the law was fundamentally flawed. They argued that the matter of race—both as a legal and factual determination—was too complicated to be left to the arbitrary judgment of a railway conductor.21

Ultimately, the committee sought to challenge the constitutionality of the act under the Fourteenth Amendment, asserting that such segregation denied citizens the equal protection of the laws. Plessy’s willingness to embrace his African heritage despite his ability to pass for white was a deliberate act of resistance against the emerging Jim Crow system.2