The document provides background information on the U.S. Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896. It describes that Homer Plessy, who was of mixed race, was arrested for refusing to leave a whites-only train car as required by a new Louisiana law mandating racial segregation on railroads. Plessy filed suit arguing the law violated the 13th and 14th Amendments. The Supreme Court ultimately ruled 7-1 against Plessy, establishing the "separate but equal" doctrine that allowed racial segregation if facilities were equal in quality for both races.

3. A system of agriculture where a
landowner rents his land to a poor
farmer (sharecropper) who uses
the land to grow crops and then
has to give the landowner a share
of the crops yielded.
Sharecropping

5. One word to describe the
Reconstruction period is….

6. Does Treating People
Equally mean Treating the
Same?
Can you think of a time when to treat
people equally, you must not treat them
the same?

7. Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
• In 1890, the state of Louisiana passed a law called the
"Separate Car Act", which stated "that all railway companies
shall provide equal but separate accommodations for the
white, and colored races"
• The penalty for sitting in the wrong railway car was a fine of
$25 or 20 days in jail.
• On June 7, 1892, Homer Plessy, who was of Creole and
African descent, bought a first-class ticket to Covington, a
small Louisiana town.
• When a train conductor asked him to move to the back of
the train, Plessy refused.
• Plessy was forcibly removed and taken to jail to await trial
on charges of violating the Louisiana law.

9. Task: Read the decision of the Supreme
Court and….
1. Who won the case; Plessy or Ferguson?
2. Summarize the court’s decision in your
own words by completing

10. • Plessy v.
Ferguson –
Supreme Court
case that
established
“separate but
equal”
(segregation=
Jim Crow Laws)

11.  Black codes- laws passed by state government of the
South that denied equality to freedmen.
 Segregation - the legal separation of blacks and whites
in public places
 Jim Crow Laws - laws that forced segregation

13. Where does the name Jim
Crow come from???

14. Closure