Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America 1619-2019 by Ibram X. Kendi & Keisha N. Blain

Author:Ibram X. Kendi & Keisha N. Blain [Kendi, Ibram X. & Blain, Keisha N.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473592476
Google: 3BgCEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2021-02-04T00:00:00+00:00

1894–1899

PLESSY V. FERGUSON

Blair L. M. Kelley

At the beginning of our conversation, Keith Plessy lets me know that if I google Homer Plessy, historic images of mixed-race men pop up, but none of the images are actually of him. He tells me that the man with the full beard is P.B.S. Pinchback, a Union Army officer and the former lieutenant governor of Louisiana. The clean-shaven gentleman, who is also not Plessy, is Daniel Desdunes, the son of organizer Rodolphe Desdunes and the first man selected by the Citizens’ Committee to test the legality of interstate segregation. This isn’t the first time Keith Plessy, whose fourth-great-grandfather was also Homer Plessy’s grandfather, has told me a search of the Internet will not turn up a real picture of Homer Plessy.

He mentioned this when we first met eight years ago, not realizing he kept repeating the same complaint. His repetition underscores his abiding frustration with the error of misidentification and the other omissions that shape our landscapes. Keith Plessy wants to correct those mistakes and reshape how we understand the legacy of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896).

Those familiar with the outlines of the legal battle for civil rights know that the U.S. Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson served as the legal foundation for de jure racial segregation. This failed test case was put forward by the small group of Creole of Color New Orleans activists called the Citizens’ Committee. The case set the precedent of “separate but equal” that stood for more than half a century. Indeed, when viewed strictly as a story about legal history, Plessy is the top of a slippery slope down to an American South where Jim Crow segregation marked every landscape. However, my conversations with Keith Plessy remind me that this historic case must be considered in the context of the particularities of place and time—then and now. Plessy v. Ferguson was the manifestation of the African American opposition to segregationist attempts to shame and degrade Black train passengers. While elite Creole of Color leaders organized the Citizens’ Committee, African Americans from all walks of life supported the effort—more than 110 organizations and thirty individuals donated to the cause. Likewise, in this moment, when our collective memories about the past are hotly contested, it will be the work of like-minded people who will harness accurate histories of the past to better address our present.

I suspect that there is no extant picture of Homer Plessy because he was working-class and probably did not have his picture taken often if at all. In the 1890s, a portrait was a luxury. Black scholars and race leaders, not shoemakers, had portraits. Even if there was once a picture, in a city that suffers from floods, winds, and weather, so much family history has been lost. In addition to the visual silence, there is an archival one; none of the extant correspondence between the members of the Citizens’ Committee and their attorney, Albion Tourgée, includes any personal, political, or professional reference to Plessy.

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