Who was Homer Adolph Plessy? A resident of New Orleans in the 1890s, Plessy’s attempt to ride in a railroad car reserved for white passengers resulted in a pernicious Supreme Court decision against him (and America), as well as a criminal sanction for Plessy. Now, a coalition of parties including Plessy’s descendants seek from Louisiana’s Governor a posthumous pardon for Plessy.

Plessy was the protagonist in Plessy v. Ferguson—the 1896 Supreme Court case that formally condoned the practice of “separate but equal.” Happily, Plessy hasn’t been the stated law in America for the nearly 70 years since Brown v. Board of Education expressly overruled Plessy. Most people are unaware that the events leading to Plessy were intentional and strategic. Plessy was a committed activist; he was prepared to deliberately commit a crime in his attempt to strike down a transparently racist Louisiana statute known as the Separate Car Act. (More clever Louisianan legislators might have named it the “Separate But Equal Car Act.”)