“A different kind of busing approach to desegregation” @ Chicago Reader

Posted on December 4, 2012

Steve Bogira — November 30, 2012: “On a summer day in 1892—120 years ago this year—Homer Plessy boarded a train in New Orleans and sat in the car for white passengers. Plessy, a 30-year-old shoemaker, was mostly white himself: he was an “octoroon”—seven-eighths white and one-eighth African. But that wasn’t white enough. Plessy was violating Louisiana’s Separate Car Act, which directed railway companies to provide “equal but separate” accommodations for whites and “coloreds.” The conductor asked him to move to the colored car; he refused and was arrested, and later fined $25…………..”

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