By DONALD DeMARCO
The following article chronicles a triumph of justice, and in so doing, establishes a basis for hope. It also makes clear that particular United States Supreme Court decisions do not always have the last word on moral issues. What may be called “Supreme” is not necessarily final.
On February 12, 2009, Keith Plessy and Phoebe Ferguson, descendants of both sides of the infamous 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson U.S. Supreme Court decision, announced the establishment of the Plessy Ferguson Foundation for Education and Reconciliation. The aim of the foundation is to teach the history of the 1896 case and its effects on the American people. “It is no longer Plessy v. Ferguson,” said Keith Plessy in a radio interview. “It is Plessy and Ferguson.”
That is the Omega of a long and arduous journey that established civil rights for black Americans.
The Alpha of the story began in 1890 when the state of Louisiana adopted a law providing for “equal but separate accommodations for the white and colored races” on its railroads. The word “separate” stood for what it meant. “Equal” was a euphemism for “unequal.” This inequality was amply exemplified when states consistently underfunded black schools and provided them with substandard buildings, textbooks, and supplies. Inequality prevailed in restaurants, washrooms, hotels, and in other public facilities. Segregation and “inequality” would prove to be a most incandescent mixture.
Homer Plessy tested the legitimacy of the Louisiana law by sitting in the “white” section of a train and refusing to leave when told to do so. He was fined $25 and his case was subsequently heard by Judge John H. Ferguson of the Criminal Court of New Orleans. Ferguson saw fit to uphold the law.
But the case was far from closed. Ultimately, the Louisiana law was challenged in the United States Supreme Court in 1986 on the grounds that it violated both the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution. What seemed to be a strong case, however, failed to win the verdict of the Supreme Court judges. By a vote of 7-1 the court upheld the Louisiana law. In so doing, it affirmed and maintained the notion that blacks were “separate but equal.”
The single dissenter in the case, was Judge John Marshall Harlan, who understood that maintaining segregation is irreconcilable with true equality. His dissenting voice was passionate and eminently reasonable. “The white race deems itself to be dominant,” he wrote, but the Constitution recognizes “no superior, dominant ruling class of citizens.”
“Our Constitution is colorblind,” he went on to state. “In respect of civil rights all citizens are equal before the law.” He summarized the equality of the races, independent of social status, in a precise and eloquent phrase: “The humblest is the peer of the most powerful.”
Justice Harlan, known to posterity as the Great Dissenter, wrote a dissent that is worth reading in its entirety. One passage merits reiteration:
“The destinies of the two races, in this country, are indissolubly linked together, and the interests of both require that the common government of all shall not permit the seeds of race hate to be planted under the sanction of law. What can more certainly arouse race hate, what can more certainly create and perpetuate a feeling of distrust between these races, than state enactments which, in fact, proceed on the ground that colored citizens are so inferior and degraded that they cannot be allowed to sit in public coaches occupied by white citizens? That, as all will admit, is the real meaning of such legislation as was enacted in Louisiana.”
The “Great Dissenter” also played the role of the “Astute Predictor.”
“In my opinion,” he declared, “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.”
Fifty-eight years later, in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that segregation in public education was unconstitutional. Ten years after that, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited all legal segregation.
One may hope that the Roe v. Wade ruling of 1973 will, one day, also be overturned. The road to justice may be long and hard.
A historic marker was unveiled on February 12, 2009, as mentioned above, near the location where Homer Plessy had boarded his train. The marker reminds us that we should not forget the lessons of history. History is a teacher. Its lessons can be either inspiring or heartbreaking. If we do learn from history, we should imitate the best and avoid the worst.
Nonetheless, people are not always good students in the classroom of history. What was learned from the horrors of World War I that could have prevented World War II? How much about racial equality was learned from the time of the Dred Scott decision to Plessy v. Ferguson? Why does the specter of Communism continue to raise its head? History is a teacher but not the most reliable one. In this regard, religion is its master.
Learning from history is learning from its mistakes. Ideally, one would like to avoid the mistakes. The philosopher George Santayana famously stated that if we do not learn from history, we are condemned to repeat its mistakes. On the other hand, Clarence Darrow maintains that “history repeats itself. That’s one of the things wrong with history.”
We need to remember that man is at the wheel of history; history is not in control of man. The Plessy v. Ferguson case is one that we can learn from. Nonetheless, we still need a script that helps us to avoid the mistakes in the first place. Here the Gospel message, including the commandment to love one another, remains paramount.
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(Dr. Donald DeMarco is a professor emeritus of St. Jerome’s University and an adjunct professor at Holy Apostles College and Seminary. He is a regular columnist for the St. Austin Review. His latest books, How to Navigate Through Life and Apostles of the Culture of Life, are posted on amazon.com.)
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