Separate: The Story of Plessy v. Ferguson, and America's Journey from Slavery to Segregation

The author sets the stage for one of the most important cases ever to appear before the US Supreme Court: Plessy vs. Ferguson decided on January 11, 1897. "Act one" is a comprehensive review of slavery and the separation of the races in the early 19th century. Here Steve Luxenberg introduces the main characters who play a role in this watershed court case. They include John Harlan, a Kentuckian whose family bought, sold and owned slaves. He was an attorney involved in local politics and took up the call to fight for the Union during the Civil War. Though Harlan did not anticipate or support the emancipation of slaves, he was more intent on the preservation of the Union. Henry Brown, born in Massachusetts and a graduate of Yale, paid to have a substitute serve in his place during the Civil War. He worked as an attorney in private practice and wrote a tome on admiralty law. Albion Tourgee served in the Union Army until he was wounded. He was a judge, author, orator and newspaper columnist who championed the rights for blacks before, during and after the Civil War."Act two" occurs during the Civil War and Reconstruction. Both Harlan and Tourgee saw the bravery of negro soldiers fighting for the Union. For Harlan the shedding of their lifes' blood by colored soldiers entitled them to the full rights and privileges of all citizens. Tourgee chose to live in North Carolina after the Civil War. He railed and wrote against the widespread prejudice, poverty, violence and murder of blacks during Reconstruction. He advocated for Federal funds to support schools for blacks. He strongly believed that education would help the emancipation of colored people.How did both Harlan and Brown come to sit on the Supreme Court? "Act three" is fascinating because their nominations and approval by the Senate were so very different from the very public and politicized selection of today's Supreme Court Justices.The "final act" is, in the opinion of this reviewer, the most interesting. Civil Rights advocates decided to promote equal rights by challenging the Jim Crow train cars in Louisiana that blacks were required to ride in. These cars were used for smokers as well, so they were smelly, dirty and less comfortable than the cars for whites. Jim Crow cars had been abolished in northeastern states since before the Civil War. It was up to the train conductor to determine the race of a passenger and enforce where he or she could sit. Louisiana was the perfect locale to challenge the racial laws because so many freed blacks had intermarried with whites in that state starting in the 18th century. Every shade of human skin was evident in Louisiana especially in New Orleans. Homer Plessy, a 29 year old, volunteered to be the test case in an intrastate trip he hoped to take in June 1892. Because the light-skinned Plessy refused to leave his seat in the whites only car, he was arrested. The case was tried locally with John H. Ferguson as the state judge. It took four and a half years for the case to make its way to the US Supreme Court. Robert Brown wrote the majority decision. He interpreted both the XIII and XIV Amendments to the US Constitution very narrowly. It was he who intoned the acceptability of "separate but equal" accommodations. John Harlan wrote the sole minority opinion in which he called the majority ruling "...an assault on the Constitution ...Our Constitution is color blind and neither knows not tolerates classes among citizens." Some sixty years later in 1954, the Supreme Court unanimously embraced the depth and breadth of the XIV Amendment when it ruled in the school integration case of Brown vs. Board of Education. Separate could never be equal; it was just separate. Since the author did such an excellent job in the Plessy vs. Ferguson case, this reviewer ardently hopes that he selects the Brown vs. Board of Education for his next writing project.

There are any number of studies of the Supreme Court's 1896 decision in Plessy v. Ferguson which held that "separate but equal" was constitutional in railroad transportation, a doctrine that was applied consistently in many areas (including public education) until the 1954 Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education. This very long book (505 pages of text; 58 pages of notes) approaches the topic from an unique perspective, somewhat broader than a traditional legal history would.The author begins his study in 1833, with Massachusetts railroads segregating passengers by race, and traces this practice up until 1896. Moreover, he focuses upon three key players in the Plessy drama--Justices John Marshall Harlan and Henry Billings Brown, and Albion W. Tourgee (who lost the case) through extensive biographical studies. In short, the author here is devoted to establishing the context of the case and the individual histories of these three actors going all the way back to 1833. He demonstrates that to really understand this case, you have to do a lot more than merely read the Court's decision.The author's discussions of the two Justices, especially Harlan, are outstanding. While there is not much to Brown, who wrote the 8-1 decision upholding the practice, Harlan is a fascinating character. While fighting on the Union side in the Civil War in Kentucky, he never opposed slavery and hoped Lincoln would just restore the status quo ante and not interfere in his state. He was certainly no "flaming liberal" and how he came to write his dissent in well covered in the book. Tourgee was a driven opponent of the practice, especially after having lived in North Carolina for 17 years after the war. He really achieved fame not for his work in this case, but as a best selling novelist. While his arguments to the Court were sound, he was way ahead of his time. Any analysis of the Court by Tourgee and his allies would have to have demonstrated clearly that their chances were zero with the Court's membership. It seems the Justices simply didn't see what injury was inflicted by "Jim Crow cars." I think this is why Chief Justice Warren in his opinion striking the practice in public education placed reliance upon sociological evidence (such as the "black doll" studies by Kenneth Clark) to demonstrate the severe emotional injuries inflicted upon segregated school children.One of the most interesting things I learned was that the Plessy case was a fully staged test casewith with both sides (including the railroad) working together to present the issue to the Court. The book is not blessed with extensive legal analysis--but that is not why you read this study. What the author gets to better than anything else I have read, is "the story behind the story" regarding the case. If you really, really want to understand what Plessy is all about, this is the book to read. What happened in 1896 is not so much the story as is why it happened. That is what this fine book is all about.

This wonderful book tells a story almost no one knows. I've spent my life reading books about American history but knew next to nothing about the famous Supreme Court case of Plessy vs. Ferguson, the case that made segregation lawful until Brown vs. Board of Education swept it aside in 1954.I worked for years with the author, Steve Luxenberg, but I am not writing this book to do him a favor--my intention is to do you a favor. If you like a well-written story that's central to the story of our country, you will love this book as much as I do.Luxenberg tells the story through the biographies of several of the principles: Louis Martinet, a newspaper editor from New Orleans; Albion Tourgee, a famous novelist who pursued the misguided legal strategy that doggedly tried to get this case to the Supreme Court; Justice Henry Brown, whose preposterous majority opinion was the law of the land for almost 60 years; and the first Justice John Marshall Harlan, whom one comes away admiring to no end. He had the wisdom to write "In my opinion, the judgment this day rendered will, in time, prove to be quite as pernicious as the decision made by this tribunal in the Dred Scott case." The author is fair in describing all Harlan's faults, but to any reader of this book, he is a hero.And so is the author. Steve Luxenberg is a gifted writer and he has a story to tell you. Do yourself a favor and read it.