Discrimination and Disparities

by Thomas Sowell

The famous Supreme Court case of Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896 arose from the cooperation of the railroads with Homer Plessy, who was challenging these racial segregation laws, in order to create a test case. Although Plessy was part of the black community, he was genetically far more Caucasian than African, and was physically indistinguishable from white men. Had he simply gotten on a train and ridden to his destination, there was little likelihood that he would have been questioned about being seated in a railroad car set aside for whites only. But the attorneys for the railroad and the attorneys for Plessy cooperated in arranging a legal confrontation, so that there would be a case to take into the courts.27 Unfortunately for both, and for the cause of equal rights in general, the Supreme Court majority ruled against them.