In 1896 a case came into the Supreme Court where a black man, Homer Plessy, sued the Honorable Judge John H Ferguson over his decision in the lawsuit Homer Adolph Plessy V. State of Louisiana. In that case Judge Ferguson ruled in favor of the State of Louisiana saying that Louisiana had the right to regulate railroad companies as long as they were within state boundaries. Plessy immediately called for a writs of prohibition and certiorari in the United States Supreme Court.
The supreme court took the case with the intention of declaring the right to segregate public facilities either constitutional of unconstitutional. Plessy and his legal team fought that the segregation impeded on his rights in the fourteenth amendment. The Opinion written by Justice Brown stated that Plessy had no case as he was arguing his rights while the case was about the constitutionality of the Law. Because of this misunderstanding the Justices ruled in favor of Ferguson and ruled that the law was constitutional.
This ruling allowed for Jim Crow laws, separate but equal laws, to continue to emerge all over the south.
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