Talk:Homer Plessy

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[edit] Conflict in the facts

There seems to be a conflict in the "facts" of the Plessy v. Ferguson United States Supreme Court decision. In the main article of Plessy v. Ferguson it states :

"The railroad company had been informed already as to Plessy's racial lineage, and after Plessy had taken a seat in the whites-only railway car, he was asked to vacate it and sit instead in the blacks-only car. Plessy refused and was arrested immediately."

which seems to indicate that a third party had informed the railroad company of Plessy's racial lineage. This is contardicted by the Homer Plessy page which states:

"On June 7, 1892, Plessy bought a first-class ticket on the East Louisiana Railroad, running between New Orleans and Covington, and sat in the "whites only" passenger car. When the conductor came to collect his ticket, he told him that he was 1/8 African American, and he was refusing sit in the black only car."

Could someone out there who has any idea about this case please rectify this contradiction.

The way I learned it in my United States History class was that the incident was rigged.
My own mother is a quadroon, just like Homer Plessy, and you would never, ever, be able to guess than she has any black ancestry. Anywhom, this goes to the point that Plessy could not have been identified as black by mere sight, so you are definitely right in assuming that the conductor was informed by ear, and not sight, that Plessy was part-black.
So, back to history class. According to my teaching of the incident, the railroad company was having a hard time making seperate carts for blacks and whites and needed the money that was being wasted on a half-full black car and a half-full white car. Integrated seating would have saved them thousands.
So, to crush the demands of the whiny white people who needed their own car, the railroad hand-picked Homer Plessy to sit in the white cart and make a scene with the conductor so that the police (and eventually a court) would have to get involved. The railroad was so confident that the whites' silly and unreasonable demands for segregation would be denied by the court system.
Instead, they opened the gate for 50 years of "seperate but equal". Oops.
--S.M. 08:28, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
This is an error. Plessy was asked by a civil rights organization to challenge the law; he was chosen because he closely approximated white appearance and complexion, and he informed the conductor that he was colored, not white.
----gab 21:58, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] grandmother or grandfather?

This article contradicts the article at African American, which states that it was the grand*father* that was black. Can someone with a history textbook fix this please? - Richardcavell 21:52, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Answer: I think that this is an error at African American Registry; it would be more likely that his great-grandmother would be black and possibly a slave who was later emancipated along with her--and her white master/lover's--children. The great-grandmother and great-grandfather (who undoubtedly supplied and allowed her to assume the surname of Plessy) would be his ancestors as a Creole of color.--gab 21:51, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
According to American Nightmare: The History of Jim Crow by Jerrold M. Packard (p. 73), Plessy had one black great grand-parent and was seven-eighths white. MK2 19:28, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Plessy Photo

Is it possible that the photo appearing and labeled as Homer Plessy is incorrect? If Mr. Plessy died in 1925 at the age of 62 it does not seem possible that the photograph is of the Plessy of Plessy vs. Ferguson. It seems too contemporary to be of the early 20th century or even late 19th century.

If anyone has a better photo, or can confirm this photo it would be appreciated.

--KMSullivan 21:42, 28 May 2006 (UTC)KMSullivan

I have removed the photograph and my previous remarks regarding it. I took a closer look at the original photograph and studied the context in which it might originally have been portrayed. The style of dress worn by other men in the photograph appears to be from the 1940s-1950s. The young man was trying to integrate a whites-only waiting room and was being ushered out. He is not Homer Plessy. --gab 15:12, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] new Plessy Photo Revisited

The current version of the Homer Plessy photo is not confirmed by his biographer, Keith Weldon Medley.

I have placed a question on the talk page of the user who uploaded it. That user, however, is without a history on Wikipedia so I am confused. The photo does not show its origin or provenance. I am therefore inclined to remove it until it can be authoritatively confirmed. Anyone have an opinion on this? Skywriter 21:24, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I went ahead and removed that photo HomerPlessy.jpg uploaded by first time user who did not state its origin or provenance. Photo can be returned when and if we are certain of its origin. Skywriter 21:41, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I have tagged Image:HomerPlessy.jpg for deletion. It is a photograph of P. B. S. Pinchback (cropped and reversed). --Dhartung | Talk 22:45, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Photographs of Homer Plessy

Check Google Images, and you'll find various photographs of Homer Plessy. Maybe some of those are in the public domain. If so, they could be copied into Wikipedia and this article could include them. Michael Hardy (talk) 04:43, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I have looked through Google Images and I could only find one photograph that I thought could be him, but I was not confident of the sourcing. Google Images will return photos found on pages where Plessy is mentioned, but has no way of being certain that any of them are of the subject. (See above for one error someone has already made.) --Dhartung | Talk 22:45, 18 May 2008 (UTC)