---
title: "Battle of Plessy v. Ferguson Decision"
year: 1896
country: "United States"
canonical: "https://recap.at/1896/plessy-ferguson"
slug: "plessy-ferguson"
recapType: "global_event"
startDate: "1896-05-18"
---

# Battle of Plessy v. Ferguson Decision

> The Supreme Court's 'separate but equal' ruling codified racial segregation in American law for the next 58 years, profoundly shaping civil rights history.

On May 18, 1896, the Supreme Court ruled 7-1 that racial segregation was constitutional as long as facilities were theoretically equal. The decision gave legal cover to Jim Crow laws across the South for nearly 60 years until Brown v. Board of Education dismantled it in 1954.

## Summary

Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896), was a landmark United States Supreme Court decision ruling that racial segregation laws did not violate the U.S. Constitution as long as the facilities for each race were equal in quality, a doctrine that came to be known as "separate but equal". The decision legitimized the many "Jim Crow laws" re-establishing racial segregation that had been passed in the American South after the end of the Reconstruction era in 1877.

## Sources

- [Plessy v. Ferguson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessy_v._Ferguson) - Wikipedia

---
Canonical: https://recap.at/1896/plessy-ferguson