Plessy v. Ferguson: Identity and Disappearance
by Carolyn T.
According to Janette Thomas Greenwood in The Gilded Age: A History of Documents, Homer Plessy boarded the train in New Orleans and sat in the “whites only” first-class section and was asked by the conductor to move to the “colored only” car; when Plessy refused, he was arrested (Greenwood, 101). This discussion of the events suggests that Homer Plessy was easily identifiable as African American and her discussion of Louisiana suggests that this state’s ideas about racial identity were like the rest of the South at that time. Both suggestions conflict with what is known about the case and Louisiana’s social and state understandings of race. This omitted information is crucial to understanding the complexities of Plessy v. Ferguson and the decision’s historical and current relevance.
Most people tend to associate Plessy v. Ferguson with the upholding of Jim Crow laws in the South or the phrase “separate but equal.” (1) However, Plessy v. Ferguson also dealt with identity politics or, more specifically, the question of color. In 1892, Homer Plessy bought a first-class ticket on the East Louisiana Railway to travel from New Orleans to Covington, Louisiana. At that time, Louisiana’s statutes mandated racial segregation. When Mr. Plessy sat down in the whites only car, his presence there was not disputed because he “looked” white. According to the court’s documents, Plessy was not visually discernible as being of African descent (Plessy, 1896:538 [headnote]). According to Mr. Plessy's legal argument, because he considered himself white, he took a seat in the car reserved for white passengers.
This legal argument contradicted his actions somewhat in both that he was working with the Committee to change the law (although not necessarily as Greenwood contends) but also when he stood up in the whites only car and announced to the conductor that he had African ancestry. This declaration provided the opportunity for conductor to “identify” Plessy as being of African descent. In other words, if Mr. Plessy had not said anything about his ancestry his “whiteness” would have been assumed.
The assumption of “whiteness” within Louisiana, however, was a precarious thing to do at the time. As Mark Golub states in “Plessy as ‘Passing’: Judicial Responses to Ambiguously Raced Bodies in Plessy v. Ferguson,” “To appreciate the complexity of issues of racial classification in the case, one must consider the location and context of the legal dispute, in New Orleans, a city thoroughly marked by its strong Creole tradition” (2005:568). Louisiana was originally a Spanish colony. It later was colonized Bourbon France, Great Britain, the Republic of West Florida, Napoleon and, finally, the United States. The cultural factors of this particular type of colonization (as opposed to strictly British colonization) contributed to high rates of interracial sexual contact (Spear, 1999:37). A combination of French and Spanish laws also contributed to a large free African American and mulatto communities (2) in possession of legal, social, and economic rights that were not seen within the British colonies (Sterkx, 1972:26-34). The difference in the colonization of Louisiana led to a different view of and among what would be considered today the African American population within Louisiana.
So, while Homer Plessy took his case to the United States Supreme Court to question the constitutionality of racial segregation in Louisiana and elsewhere by arguing that the state law went against the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments to the US Constitution, it also attempted to call into question the arbitrariness of legal racial definitions (Davis, 1991:8-9, 52-53, 68). However, given Louisiana’s racial caste system and that Plessy and the members of the "Citizens' Committee to Test the Constitutionality of the Separate Car Law" were mulatto caste (rather than Negro caste), is it safe to assume the Committee or Plessy were fighting for the equality of all African Americans under the law or merely attempting to claim whiteness for themselves while leaving Jim Crow firmly in place?
Complicating this reading, the court discussed the lack of visual discernment of Plessy’s racial identity within their decision. Yet, three paragraphs after this remark, the court states, “A statute which implies merely a legal distinction between the white and colored races — a distinction which is founded in the color of the two races, and which must always exist so long as white men are distinguished from the other race by color [italics mine] — has no tendency to destroy the legal equality of the two races, or re-establish a state of involuntary servitude” (Plessy, 1896:538). It appears that the more the court attempts to defend its position the more it has to disappear Homer Plessy from the case and the text. This disappearing of Plessy is duplicated by those teaching Plessy in the classroom through the use of books like Greenwood’s; how and/or does this color (all puns intended) society’s collective understanding of “race,” “blackness,” “whiteness,” etc. in this country?
NOTES:
(1) A Jim Crow law is “a law enacted or purposely interpreted to discriminate against blacks, such as requiring separate restrooms for blacks and whites,” according to Black’s law dictionary, 7th ed., ed. Bryan A. Garner (St. Paul, MN: West Group, 1999), 840. For an in-depth discussion of Jim Crow laws and analysis of legal racial definitions in the United States, see F. James Davis, Who is black? One nation’s definition (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1991).
(2) While not separate and necessarily distinct, the African American (or Negro) community and the mulatto community had different social structures and networks that reflected the racial hierarchy of Louisiana.
REFERENCE LIST:
Davis, F. James. Who Is Black: One Nation’s Definition. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1991.
Golub, Mark. "Plessy As "Passing": Judicial Responses to Ambiguously Raced Bodies in Plessy V. Ferguson." Law & Society Review 39, no. 3 (2005): 563-600.
Louisiana, State of. "Louisiana History." Accessed 20 Apr. 2006.
Plessy V. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 US Supreme Court (1896).
Spear, Jennifer M. "They Need Wives': Mestissage and the Regulation of Sexuality in French Louisiana, 1699-1730." In Sex, Love, Race: Crossing Boundaries in North American History, edited by Marth Elizabeth Hodes, 35-59. New York: New York University Press, 1999.
Sterkx, H.E. The Free Negro in Ant-Bellum Louisiana. Madison, NJ: Associated University Press, 1972.
According to Janette Thomas Greenwood in The Gilded Age: A History of Documents, Homer Plessy boarded the train in New Orleans and sat in the “whites only” first-class section and was asked by the conductor to move to the “colored only” car; when Plessy refused, he was arrested (Greenwood, 101). This discussion of the events suggests that Homer Plessy was easily identifiable as African American and her discussion of Louisiana suggests that this state’s ideas about racial identity were like the rest of the South at that time. Both suggestions conflict with what is known about the case and Louisiana’s social and state understandings of race. This omitted information is crucial to understanding the complexities of Plessy v. Ferguson and the decision’s historical and current relevance.
Most people tend to associate Plessy v. Ferguson with the upholding of Jim Crow laws in the South or the phrase “separate but equal.” (1) However, Plessy v. Ferguson also dealt with identity politics or, more specifically, the question of color. In 1892, Homer Plessy bought a first-class ticket on the East Louisiana Railway to travel from New Orleans to Covington, Louisiana. At that time, Louisiana’s statutes mandated racial segregation. When Mr. Plessy sat down in the whites only car, his presence there was not disputed because he “looked” white. According to the court’s documents, Plessy was not visually discernible as being of African descent (Plessy, 1896:538 [headnote]). According to Mr. Plessy's legal argument, because he considered himself white, he took a seat in the car reserved for white passengers.
This legal argument contradicted his actions somewhat in both that he was working with the Committee to change the law (although not necessarily as Greenwood contends) but also when he stood up in the whites only car and announced to the conductor that he had African ancestry. This declaration provided the opportunity for conductor to “identify” Plessy as being of African descent. In other words, if Mr. Plessy had not said anything about his ancestry his “whiteness” would have been assumed.
The assumption of “whiteness” within Louisiana, however, was a precarious thing to do at the time. As Mark Golub states in “Plessy as ‘Passing’: Judicial Responses to Ambiguously Raced Bodies in Plessy v. Ferguson,” “To appreciate the complexity of issues of racial classification in the case, one must consider the location and context of the legal dispute, in New Orleans, a city thoroughly marked by its strong Creole tradition” (2005:568). Louisiana was originally a Spanish colony. It later was colonized Bourbon France, Great Britain, the Republic of West Florida, Napoleon and, finally, the United States. The cultural factors of this particular type of colonization (as opposed to strictly British colonization) contributed to high rates of interracial sexual contact (Spear, 1999:37). A combination of French and Spanish laws also contributed to a large free African American and mulatto communities (2) in possession of legal, social, and economic rights that were not seen within the British colonies (Sterkx, 1972:26-34). The difference in the colonization of Louisiana led to a different view of and among what would be considered today the African American population within Louisiana.
So, while Homer Plessy took his case to the United States Supreme Court to question the constitutionality of racial segregation in Louisiana and elsewhere by arguing that the state law went against the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments to the US Constitution, it also attempted to call into question the arbitrariness of legal racial definitions (Davis, 1991:8-9, 52-53, 68). However, given Louisiana’s racial caste system and that Plessy and the members of the "Citizens' Committee to Test the Constitutionality of the Separate Car Law" were mulatto caste (rather than Negro caste), is it safe to assume the Committee or Plessy were fighting for the equality of all African Americans under the law or merely attempting to claim whiteness for themselves while leaving Jim Crow firmly in place?
Complicating this reading, the court discussed the lack of visual discernment of Plessy’s racial identity within their decision. Yet, three paragraphs after this remark, the court states, “A statute which implies merely a legal distinction between the white and colored races — a distinction which is founded in the color of the two races, and which must always exist so long as white men are distinguished from the other race by color [italics mine] — has no tendency to destroy the legal equality of the two races, or re-establish a state of involuntary servitude” (Plessy, 1896:538). It appears that the more the court attempts to defend its position the more it has to disappear Homer Plessy from the case and the text. This disappearing of Plessy is duplicated by those teaching Plessy in the classroom through the use of books like Greenwood’s; how and/or does this color (all puns intended) society’s collective understanding of “race,” “blackness,” “whiteness,” etc. in this country?
NOTES:
(1) A Jim Crow law is “a law enacted or purposely interpreted to discriminate against blacks, such as requiring separate restrooms for blacks and whites,” according to Black’s law dictionary, 7th ed., ed. Bryan A. Garner (St. Paul, MN: West Group, 1999), 840. For an in-depth discussion of Jim Crow laws and analysis of legal racial definitions in the United States, see F. James Davis, Who is black? One nation’s definition (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1991).
(2) While not separate and necessarily distinct, the African American (or Negro) community and the mulatto community had different social structures and networks that reflected the racial hierarchy of Louisiana.
REFERENCE LIST:
Davis, F. James. Who Is Black: One Nation’s Definition. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1991.
Golub, Mark. "Plessy As "Passing": Judicial Responses to Ambiguously Raced Bodies in Plessy V. Ferguson." Law & Society Review 39, no. 3 (2005): 563-600.
Louisiana, State of. "Louisiana History." Accessed 20 Apr. 2006.
Plessy V. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 US Supreme Court (1896).
Spear, Jennifer M. "They Need Wives': Mestissage and the Regulation of Sexuality in French Louisiana, 1699-1730." In Sex, Love, Race: Crossing Boundaries in North American History, edited by Marth Elizabeth Hodes, 35-59. New York: New York University Press, 1999.
Sterkx, H.E. The Free Negro in Ant-Bellum Louisiana. Madison, NJ: Associated University Press, 1972.
posted by Leslie Madsen-Brooks at 9:44 PM
13 Comments:
I really enjoyed this post and the discussion/lecture about Plessy v Ferguson in class today. The point made about the different categories people could fit into, black white or quasi white was a novel idea in my mind. Its funny to think how people self identify can be so very different from how others would categorize them. What I am wondering is was the Supreme Court in agreement with their decision? And how did people take their decision, was it a celebrated "win" for white people?
whoops what i meant was, did all 9 (i think its nine) members of the supreme court support the outcome of plessy v ferguson
I was shocked about the fractions that we discussed in class today. The obsession with numbers makes the "decision makers" (wealthy, racist, whites) seem even more absurd. I am a little confused on what position Walter White had in this whole ordeal.
--Ashley B.
Great post, your lecture was also really good. Plessy V Ferguson, and Jim Crow in general, show the attempt white middle class men (mainly)made to control the post-slavery social structure. They (white middle class) wanted racial heirarchy to remain in place, and to enforce their power over African Americans. I find it really interesting that Plessy played into the racial heirarchy and essentially tried to prove his "whiteness" and recieve the privlages that came with whiteness in the 1890's and beyond.
Today's class lecture was very interesting...one of the questions you pose in your blog is one I still am unsure of...what was Plessy's intent? To be considered white or to end segregation? I was absolutely stunned to hear that men of African decent were lynched because of business success. There were obvious underlying terms....but how did the "white" men justify their actions?
This post and the discussion today reminded me of the term "bourgie". From my knowledge, the term is used to describe middle class/well to do African Americans who live the life like most other white middle class people but criticized by the working class blacks. For some reason this very much reminded me of Plessy v Ferguson, mainly because it reflected the struggle between social class hierchy as well as stratification of class within different races.
I guess I didn't cover the decision (who voted in favor of Ferguson and who was opposed to the decision). As is discussed in the Gilded Age, it was not a unanomous decision. One justice was not present for the case and, therefore, didn't vote. Justice Brown wrote the opinion for the court and Justice Harlan, the one desenting opinion, wrote the opposition to the decision. If you follow the link for the case, you can read both the majority opinion and the desent. I highly recommend reading the actually case to anyone interested in the case, civil rights (then and now), or ideas about race, colorism, white privilege, etc.
Ashley, Walter White didn't have a position within this particular case, per se. He was certainly affected by the decision (as were all people within the U.S. then and now). I brought him up in class to discuss other experiences of being Black and looking white during that same time period and also to discuss how the NAACP investigated lynchings. His is an interesting, although certainly not a singularly, tale. If you are interested in his life and work, you might want to read his autobiography, A Man Called White - I believe the library has a copy.
Oh and Keren, to finish answering your questions about the decision, there weren't ticker tape parades in the streets - so "celebrated" might not be the right word. It's been stated by a variety of people (Lennard Davis, Peggy MacIntosh, Cornell West, Angela Davis, etc.) and is certainly observable that people who are in power and have so much privilege in a particular society don't need to "celebrate" what they take as natural superiority.
Much of what the court hinged their decision on was the "naturalness" of white supremacy; if something is "naturally" better then it isn't a victory to state that it is so; it's simply a stated "fact." For better and worse, we tend to do that alot in this society -- mask prejudice by declaring it fact.
What really fascinates me is the fact that today's teachings twist Plessy's case in order to uphold this heroic, selfless, anti-racist, MLK-esque ideal. I don't know how to put it clearly into words, but it's astonishing that something the government once fought is now distorted into something even more radical and celebrated as such. Does that make sense?
Very informative post and lecture Carolyn. The question you pose in your essay is very interesting. Maybe Plessy and/or the Committee thought that the case wouldn't go as far or get as much attention if he/they framed the issue as a demand for equality for African Americans. Pushing the line of who can be considered white may have been a way to get more rights to people who were of African descent, and that it would lead to more rights for African Americans as a whole over time, although it sounds kind of strange.
Great lecture in class yesterday. The fact that Homer Plessy was not easily discernable as a black man changes the entire dynamic of the trial. For the sake of ease of education, does it seem fair that this fact is ommitted, or are we, as a society, trying to heal the wounds of slavery by casting Plessy as a selfless hero who stood up for what he believed to be a violation of his civil rights?
Lauren, I agree with you that he wasn't solely out for himself (otherwise, he would have just sat there and said nothing - as I'm sure many did). There were some within the Black community who felt that creating a slippery slope going uphill would actually work -- even though, historically, slippery slopes have only worked in a negative, downhill, direction -- and the Black community is community in this country that has had this debate (about creating a slippery slope that works FOR a minority community).
Beyond that, I think there is at least one crucial thing to think about in the use of this particular legal argument: Was shifting the position of whiteness to include himself and others like him really disputing the supremacy of whiteness (the only thing that "legitimated" Jim Crow)? But even more importantly than question this particular strategy at that time, is to question how Plessy is discussed and presented today and what affect that has on our understanding and interpretation of the past and current issues. To me, the silence, the double disappearance of Homer Plessy (first from the decision and then, in a real sense, from history) is a far more disturbing and interesting thing to examine than what Mr. Plessy or the Committee or Washington or DuBois or anyone else intended.
To answer your question, "Do you consider the "separate, but equal" clause to be limited to matters of segregation" -- I'm assuming by "segregation" you actually meant limited to racial minorities and separate but equal, I definitely do not think it is limited. Without going into detail here about my personal thoughts on the institution of marriage, you might want to read my chapter, "Ghosts in the Machine" within the anthology, Critical Disability Theory (2006) to get a sense of how one can look at Plessy in relationship to disability, gender, sex and sexuality and current U.S. juridical system's decisions.
I really enjoyed this post and what it meant to be white, or black. It seems to be white in late 19 century is to be accomodated with a better standard of living oppose to a your minority counterparts.
Jim Crow laws, and Black Codes were drafted from a traditional ideology that the status of whites in America must remain exclusive. Having said the following, it makes since in a awkward fashion that upon learning of Plessy's African ancestry, caused such a commotion.
However, there was a study about five years ago at Harvard, where they found that not only do virtually all blacks have white ancestry in their family roots, about 90% of whites have black ancestry as well. So if everybody is everything, it makes our country look ignorant to impose legislature that uphold's one citizen over the other.
Post a Comment
<< Home