--- title: Plessy v Ferguson: 60 Years of Segregation on American Rails description: The infamous segregation case was decided 120 years ago, establishing the shameful doctrine of "separate but equal" canonical: https://time.com/4326692/plessy-ferguson-history-120/ author: Lily Rothman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-05-18T15:30:48.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T17:28:09.612Z article:section: History og:title: Plessy v Ferguson: 60 Years of Segregation on American Rails og:description: The infamous Plessy v. Ferguson case was decided 120 years ago og:url: https://time.com/4326692/plessy-ferguson-history-120/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta2a0212a8aabac54/698892cef887dc4bd6e95cff/scotus.jpeg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Washington D. C. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Plessy v Ferguson: 60 Years of Segregation on American Rails twitter:description: The infamous Plessy v. Ferguson case was decided 120 years ago twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta2a0212a8aabac54/698892cef887dc4bd6e95cff/scotus.jpeg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Long Death of the 'Separate but Equal' Doctrine  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. May 18, 2016 3:30 PM UTC  The Supreme Court Building, in Washington D. C., circa 1940-1965. The Supreme Court Building, in Washington D. C., circa 1940-1965.Frederic Lewis—Getty Images  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. May 18, 2016 3:30 PM UTC One of the most infamous Supreme Court decisions in American history was handed down 120 years ago, on May 18, 1896: _Plessy v. Ferguson_. That means the number of years that the United States allowed the doctrine of “separate but equal” to stand is now equal to the number of years that have passed without it, as American railroads were formally integrated in 1956\. Except that the story of racism on the rails is [still being told](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/08/25/allegations-of-racism-after-a-black-womens-book-club-is-ordered-off-calif-wine-train/). The difficulty of pinning down a date to bookend that 1896 ruling illustrates one of the most pernicious aspects of the racial segregation system that _Plessy_ enshrined in law: though the government was able to affirm that segregation was legal, they had a hard time taking it back. As TIME would explain in a 1953 [cover story](http://time.com/vault/issue/1953-12-21/page/1/) about the “fading line” of segregation, the facts of _Plessy_ were thus: “It arose on June 7, 1892, when Homer Adolph Plessy bought a ticket on the East Louisiana Railroad, from New Orleans to Covington, La. Plessy, seven-eighths white and one-eighth Negro, took a seat in the white coach on the segregated train. When he refused to move, he was taken off and jailed. The case reached the Supreme Court in 1896, and the court ruled that Louisiana’s law, calling for ‘equal but separate’ facilities on trains, was constitutional. The majority opinion held that Negroes were equal to whites ‘civilly and politically,’ but not ‘socially.'” Though transportation had been segregated long before _Plessy,_ the decision was the moment at which the doctrine gained the official seal of approval. [_Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter_](http://time.com/newsletter) In 1954, with _Brown v. Board of Education_, the Supreme Court finally declared what Americans could long have seen with their own eyes: that which was kept separate was inherently unequal. “Even if physical facilities are equal, said the court,there are intangible factors which prevent ‘separate’ from being ‘equal,'” TIME [explained](http://time.com/vault/issue/1954-05-24/page/23/) in coverage of the case. _Brown_ took on the specific question of segregation in public schools. It was not until later that the realm originally addressed in _Plessy_ was integrated. In late 1955—following a landmark [ruling](https://lcrm.lib.unc.edu/blog/index.php/2012/11/07/remembering-sarah-keys/) about segregated buses—the Interstate Commerce Commission ruled that interstate rail and bus carriages had to be integrated, starting Jan. 10, 1956, as TIME [reported](http://time.com/vault/issue/1955-12-05/page/26/): --- > “” --- However, as with so many of these cases, the ruling did not translate to immediate and peaceful integration. Rather, according to Raymond Arsenault’s[ history of the Freedom Riders](https://books.google.com/books?id=RZAA-hS178UC&pg=PA441&lpg=PA441&dq=icc+november+1955+integration&source=bl&ots=F5OzQqQhNQ&sig=Vr8EqNpGSVWvqTHBvk7vEaVvUc8&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi75cS28tLMAhVBwj4KHTtJDTEQ6AEINDAE#v=onepage&q=icc%20november%201955%20integration&f=false), segregation on Southern railways persisted for at least five years after the ICC edict took effect. It wasn’t until 1961 that then-Attorney General Robert Kennedy [told](http://time.com/vault/issue/1961-06-09/page/17/) the ICC to start enforcing its own rule. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4326692/plessy-ferguson-history-120/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4326692/plessy-ferguson-history-120/"},"headline":"The Long Death of the 'Separate but Equal' Doctrine","datePublished":"2016-05-18T15:30:48.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T17:28:09.612Z","description":"The infamous Plessy v. Ferguson case was decided 120 years ago, establishing the shameful doctrine of \"separate but equal\"","url":"https://time.com/4326692/plessy-ferguson-history-120/","keywords":["Courts","Civil Rights"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta2a0212a8aabac54/698892cef887dc4bd6e95cff/scotus.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Lily Rothman","jobTitle":"Rothman is managing editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta2a0212a8aabac54/698892cef887dc4bd6e95cff/scotus.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Washington D. C.","caption":"Washington D. C.","creditText":"Frederic Lewis—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/courts/","name":"Courts"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4326692/plessy-ferguson-history-120/","name":"The Long Death of the 'Separate but Equal' Doctrine"}}]}] ```