Separate: The Story of Plessy v. Ferguson, and America's Journey from Slavery to Segregation

by Steve Luxenberg

Separate is a myth-shattering narrative of one of the most consequential Supreme Court cases of the nineteenth century, Plessy v. Ferguson. The 1896 ruling embraced racial segregation, and its reverberations are still felt today. Drawing on letters, diaries, and archival collections, Steve Luxenberg reveals the origins of racial separation and its pernicious grip on American life. He tells the story through the lives of the people caught up in the case: Louis Martinet, who led the resisters from the mixed-race community of French New Orleans; Albion Tourgée, a best-selling author and the country’s best-known white advocate for civil rights; Justice Henry Billings Brown, from antislavery New England, whose majority ruling sanctioned separation; Justice John Harlan, the Southerner from a slaveholding family whose singular dissent cemented his reputation as a steadfast voice for justice. Sweeping, swiftly paced, and richly detailed, Separate is an urgently needed exploration of our nation’s most devastating divide.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, American History, Race, Politics, Law, Biography

624 pages, Paperback

First published February 12, 2019

About the author

Steve Luxenberg, a Washington Post associate editor, is an award-winning author and journalist. During 30+ years with The Post, he has overseen reporting that has earned numerous honors, including two Pulitzer Prizes. Twitter: @sluxenberg.

Separate: The Story of Plessy v. Ferguson, and America’s Journey from Slavery to Segregation, his second book, was published in Feb. 2019 (W.W. Norton). It was named a New York Times Editor's Choice, and a Best Book of the Month by both Amazon and Goodreads. As a work in progress, Separate won the 2016 J. Anthony Lukas Award for excellence in nonfiction writing.

Reviews have praised the book's deep research and storytelling. “Absorbing," wrote James Goodman in The New York Times Book Review, "so many surprises, absurdities and ironies. . . . Segregation is not one story but many. Luxenberg has written his with energy, elegance and a heart aching for a world without it.”

Early praise for Separate came from Katherine Boo, bestselling author of Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity ("deeply moving, devastatingly relevant"); Walter Isaacson, bestselling biographer of Steve Jobs, Benjamin Franklin and Leonardo da Vinci ("Every paragraph resonates in today's headlines"); and Bob Woodward, author of Fear: Trump in the White House and other bestsellers ("a brilliant milestone in understanding the history of race relations in America").

Steve's first book was the critically-acclaimed Annie’s Ghosts: A Journey into a Family Secret (Hyperion/Hachette, 2009), chosen as a Michigan Notable Book and selected as the 2013-2014 Great Michigan Read. During that year, Annie’s Ghosts was the focus of a state-wide series of events and discussions. The Washington Post named it one of its "Best Books of 2009," and it was featured on NPR's All Things Considered.

A native of Detroit, Steve lives in Baltimore with his wife, Mary Jo Kirschman.

Reviews

[Raymond · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you have ever taken an undergraduate course in American Government you will notice that there is always a chapter in the textbook on Civil Rights. Generally the chapter focuses on what civil rights are and gives an overview of how civil rights have been given and taken away across American history. Textbooks highlight the Plessy vs. Ferguson case of 1896 but only as a precursor to the Brown vs. Board of Education decision of 1954. Plessy is described as the case that established the "separate but equal" doctrine (even though the term cannot be found in the majority opinion) and tends to get overshadowed by the Brown ruling which ended segregation in public schools. Steve Luxenberg's book gives Plessy vs. Ferguson the treatment it deserves.

Separate tells the story of segregation in public accomodations from the 1830s, starting in the North, to the Plessy decision of 1896. It tracks the evolution of the important characters of this drama and their role in the case: John Marshall Harlan who wrote the famous dissenting opinion in Plessy, Henry Billings Brown who wrote the majority opinion in Plessy, Albion Tourgee who was one of the lawyers representing Plessy at the Supreme Court, and the free people of color in Louisiana which is the community Homer Plessy was a part of. How these characters end up in 1896 is not how they began. Positions and stances they took in their younger years look different in their later years. This is especially true of those who espoused views of racial inequality early on in life but later espoused views of racial equality by the time the Plessy decision was announced. Albion Tourgee has become a new hero of mine after reading this book.

I found the second half of the book the most interesting because it focuses on Reconstruction, the Civil Rights amendments (13th, 14th, and 15th amendments), and the Civil Rights Act of 1875 and the Supreme Court ruling that it was unconstitutional. The book ends with how the Plessy case came before the Supreme Court, the Court's ruling, and the aftermath of the decision. Separate is a very well researched book. Students of American history, civil rights, and the Supreme Court will enjoy this work.

Review is also posted here: https://medium.com/ballasts-for-the-m...

[Max · Rating 4 out of 5]

The 1896 Supreme Court’s decision in Plessy v. Ferguson firmly established the “separate but equal” treatment of people of color. It defined race relations in America until 1954 when Brown v. Board of Education reversed it 58 years later. At the time the decision made little news. It was seen as a foregone conclusion. Luxenberg traces the lives of three key participants in the case from the 1830s through the 1890s providing context for the men and issues in the case. He also devotes space to New Orleans and the unique history of its mixed-race French speaking community that was the driving force behind the case.

Mini biographies of two Supreme Court Justices who decided the case and the primary Plaintiff’s attorney who argued the case take up most of the book. Justice John Harlan of Kentucky wrote the lone dissenting opinion. He grew up in a politically connected slave holding family, however, he believed in the Union and fought for it in the Civil War. Henry Billings Brown from Massachusetts, a Yale graduate, wrote the majority opinion. He married well and lived a luxurious prosperous life. He paid for a substitute to fight in his place in the war. Albion Tourgee of Ohio argued the case before the Court. He was a lifelong civil rights activist who followed his beliefs. He fought for the Union in the war and after spent a decade in North Carolina. He was a carpetbagger who worked in politics and as a lawyer and judge to help the freedmen. Luxenberg also covers the wives who were important to the success of all three men.

Through these profiles we learn how these men thought and how their experiences helped shape them. We get a sense of the prevalent attitudes towards slavery and race relations in the north and south. We see how these views shifted pre and post war and again after reconstruction. Tourgee’s life was the most interesting. Luxenberg begins in the 1830s in Massachusetts where one of the earliest railroad lines had a separate shabby car people of color were required to use and which whites were not allowed to use. It was called the Jim Crow car, a term already in use thanks to Thomas Dartmouth Rice, a white entertainer who used black face originating the minstrel show. Separate but equal began in the north. The antebellum south had no need of such a law.

ALBION TOURGEE
Albion Tourgee was a self-directed outspoken and honest to a fault individual who grew up on a farm in northern Ohio. He was fortunate enough to attend a good school in Ohio where he met his future wife, Emma. He had little money and no well-connected relatives. He studied law at the University of Rochester but eventually ran out of money and left school. Tourgee was an ardent abolitionist. He enlisted In the Union Army despite being blind in one eye which he hid. He suffered a severe spinal injury in the first battle of Bull Run. Unable to walk he left the army, but after a surprising but incomplete recovery he joined the Ohio 105th infantry as a Lieutenant. In January 1863 he was among 150 soldiers captured in a surprise attack. After four months in a Confederate prison, he was part of a prisoner exchange. He returned to Ohio and married Emma. He resigned his commission, the back pain being too much to function as a soldier. He was 25 years old.

In 1865 Tourgee went to North Carolina. The Unionist governor wanted help in trying to reform and resurrect a rebel state that was entirely dysfunctional. Tourgee accepted the epitaph “carpetbagger.” He moved to Greensboro and Emma and later her parents joined him. He and friends started a plant nursery which failed and money was tight, but he connected with other Unionists and was selected to represent North Carolina at a convention of southern loyalists in Philadelphia. He was outspoken on equal rights and suffrage and received death threats at a time of numerous unsolved murders, but that just made him more determined. He was elected as the youngest of the 120 delegates to the convention rewriting North Carolina’s constitution. He gave a rousing speech and was given a position on the Republican Executive committee at 29 and selected to be on a three-man team to rewrite North Carolina’s civil code. But by 1875 Republicans had become anathema and Democrats controlled the state. He ran for Congress as a Republican and was soundly defeated by his Democratic opponent. Disillusioned he left North Carolina. Emma had already left tired of the threats and bitterness they received in North Carolina.

In 1880 Tourgee’s novel A Fool’s Errand was a runaway best seller. It portrayed his hopes and plight in North Carolina. It answered a question raging in the north: Why was reconstruction such a failure. His notoriety and the nomination of James Garfield thrust him back into the world of Republican politics. Tourgee had been friends with Garfield as a boy. Garfield invited Tourgee to discuss civil rights and the South. Sadly, Garfield was assassinated shortly after becoming president.

Tourgee reemerged to prominence as the Bystander, a column he wrote for a national newspaper. He focused exclusively on race issues. He became one of the most read and best-known civil rights advocates in the nation. He was invited to meet with President Harrison, House Speaker Reed, senators, and congressmen. He drafted a bill introduced in the House funding direct federal aid to public schools to address illiteracy in the South. But the bill that prevailed sent money to the states to fund public schools. Tourgee knew the states would deliver very little of that money to schools for blacks.

COURT JUSTICES
When the war broke out John Harlan raised a regiment and joined the Union Army. He wasn’t for abolition of slavery but he was for the Union. As people chose sides in Kentucky, he would be both fighting with and against friends and acquaintances. He resigned his commission to administer his father’s debt laden estate and take over his law practice. He then was elected Kentucky Attorney General. He lamented having to give up his slaves, but hired back most. Harlan ran for governor in 1871 and 1875 losing both times. As a Republican embracing civil rights for people of color, he was out of line with most people’s views in the former slave state. At the Republican convention in 1876 Harlan cast Kentucky’s votes for Hayes. Hayes wanted a Southerner to fill a Supreme Court vacancy and eventually settled on Harlan. The Court was already getting cases addressing separate facilities for people of color.

Henry Billings Brown moved to Michigan in 1860 where he had well connected friends in the Republican Party. He was appointed Assistant US Attorney and argued cases before the Michigan Supreme Court. Many of the cases involved civil rights for people of color, a contentious issue that pervaded society and politics nationwide. He bought a substitute to avoid the draft and married the daughter of a local lumber baron, while the war raged. In 1868 Brown resigned as Assistant US Attorney. His father-in-law died leaving a generous legacy to all his children. In 1875 Brown was appointed federal district judge, a position he eagerly sought. His private practice had brought pressure and stress he was happy to escape. Now wealthy from Carry’s inheritance, the low pay was irrelevant. He and Carry toured Europe staying in luxury hotels and bringing home fine art. Filling in for the circuit judge, he traveled to Memphis and sought out Jefferson Davis whose company he thoroughly enjoyed. Brown saw Davis as a refined gentleman who simply held different political views. In 1890 Brown was named to the Supreme Court after lobbying heavily for the job. He would build a second mansion in Washington, enjoy the sophisticated Washington social scene and summers in Europe during the Court’s four-month recess.


NEW ORLEANS
New Orleans was a unique society which included many free people of color, some of whom owned slaves. Not considered white, not former slaves, they were born in America, spoke French and identified as Creoles. Their skin could be light or dark. When the Civil War broke out there were still many who had fought under Andrew Jackson against the British. Jackson had promised them their rights. In 1862 the Union took over New Orleans. After delays following the emancipation proclamation Lincoln got his way abolishing slavery there. The free people of color wanted the vote and the same rights as whites. Lincoln wouldn’t go that far. Whites lumped them in with the freedmen. They were prosperous with some accumulating considerable wealth, but were denied their civil rights, something they wouldn’t accept.

During and after the war the free people of color challenged rules requiring separate cars on the city trolleys as well as similar rules for theaters, restaurants, and schools. Separate car challenges had gone on in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and other states, all the way back to the 1830’s in Massachusetts. In 1868 a new Louisiana constitution held that all businesses operating under a government license had to serve everyone regardless of race. Similar rules applied to schools, the militia and voting rights. Businesses regularly flouted the law and lawsuits were frequent.

THE COURT AND THE CASE
The Civil Rights Act of 1875 held that all persons were entitled to use public accommodations, theaters, schools, and churches. But it was typically not enforced. States sent test cases to the Supreme Court. In 1883 an eight-judge majority held that Congress had no right to dictate social customs and invalidated the Act. The lone dissenter was Justice Harlan. Harlan held that the majority’s opinion was a narrow interpretation of the 13th and 14th amendments that did not capture their “substance and spirit.” In his opinion the 13th amendment’s grant of freedom meant the same freedom enjoyed by whites. Harlan was the only southerner of the nine justices and a former slave owner. He had a deeper understanding of the impact of the Court’s decision, particular regarding treatment of blacks in the South. In 1890 Harlan was again the lone dissenter in a case brought by a railroad against a Mississippi law requiring separate but equal train cars. The majority upheld the law.

In 1890 the “Separate Car Act” passed in Louisiana requiring people of color on public transportation to sit in cars designated for them only. Louis Martinet published The New Orleans Crusader advocating for the free people of color. He led the Citizens Committee to Test the Constitutionality of the Separate Car Law. He contacted Tourgee for advice. Tourgee agreed to help without charging a fee. Together they set up a test case that could get to the Supreme Court. An arrest was staged in coordination with a railroad that didn’t want the extra expense of separate cars. In 1892, Homer Plessy, 7/8ths white and who easily passed for white, sat in a white only car and refused to leave when challenged. He was arrested as arranged and the case went to local court. Judge Ferguson found Plessy guilty and Plessy v. Ferguson was born. Martinet with Tourgee’s approval hired James Walker to handle the legal work in New Orleans. Tourgee was busy writing his column, running the National Citizens Rights Association he founded as president, and politicking at the Republican national convention for former House Speaker Tom Reed. Still Tourgee made time to thoroughly read and comment on documents, lay out strategy and coordinate throughout with Walker and Martinet.

The Supreme Court wouldn’t hear the case until 1896. By then the Court had turned ever more conservative. Tourgee knew the odds were decidedly against them. At Tourgee’s prompting, the Citizens’ Committee hired Samuel Phillips, a former Solicitor General who had argued many cases before the Supreme Court. He was an old friend of Tourgee’s. The brief written by Tourgee, Walker and Phillips was 80 pages long. Tourgee asked how the conductor could determine who was white. Louisiana had no definition. Other states had many different ones. Plessy and others of mixed race could pass one time and not the next. How could the law be enforced when conductors could not determine who was white. Tourgee asked what happens when a white mother travels with her mixed-race child. Tourgee tried to appeal to the Court’s pro property rights stance with a novel argument holding that reputational harm was cast upon those forced to sit in the non-white car. And that reputation had an economic value, making it a property being taken from passengers by conductors. Once designated non-white, a passenger could lose job opportunities and much more. Louisiana held that the law was a regulation enacted for the health and comfort of the passengers, but Tourgee held this hid the real reason. He said the law was meant to” humiliate and degrade” and “to perpetuate the caste distinctions on which slavery rested.” He asked the justices how they would feel upon being told they had to ride in the Jim Crow car. The Court decided seven to one to uphold the Separate Car Act. Brown wrote the majority opinion. Harlan dissented.

Brown writing for the majority stuck with a narrow interpretation of the 13th and 14th amendments that prior courts had made. But he went further claiming it was wrong to say that “the enforced separation of the two races stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority” “if this be so, it is not by reason of anything found in the act but solely because the colored race chooses to put that construction upon it” essentially holding people of color responsible for the discrimination against them. Harlan gave a vigorous and prescient response. He stated that “the judgement this day rendered will, in time, prove to be quite as pernicious as the decision made by this tribunal in the Dred Scott Case. Harlan went on “the law…puts the brand of servitude and degradation upon a large class of our fellow citizens…The thin disguise of ‘equal’ accommodations for passengers in railroad coaches will not mislead anyone, nor atone for the wrong this day alone.” Harlan stated the obvious which the majority ignored “Everyone knows that the statute in question [was intended] to exclude colored people from coaches occupied or assigned to white persons.” He saw the consequences, that the law “can have no other result than to render permanent peace impossible and to keep alive a conflict of races.”

[Jill H. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Separate but equal......this was the disastrous decision in the Plessy vs Ferguson Supreme Court case of 1896. The 13th Amendment abolished slavery and the 14th Amendment protected the rights of citizens. Although slavery was indeed abolished, the 14th Amendment did not extend rights to black Americans after they were released from slavery. The War Between the States was still very fresh in the minds of the public and the majority still saw the black man as less than human and who had to be governed by the white man. By crafting the language of the 14th Amendment, the Court side-stepped the most important issue that all men are equal.

Trouble started brewing when states rights became an issue that the Old South took very seriously and their race laws were punitive at best. A group of individuals The Citizens Committee, both black and white worked together to force the government to review the existing law. The group chose Homer Plessy, a mixed racial individual, and set up an arrangement in which he would be arrested for sitting in the "white car" of the local railroad and refusing to move to the "colored car". Thus began the road to the Supreme Court where Plessy vs Ferguson could have finally outlawed this type of discrimination. Instead, the "separate but equal" phrase of that decision became law and state's rights held firm. It was not until the 1954 Brown vs Board of Education Supreme Court Case began to ameliorate the rights of the black population.

The Pulitzer Prize winning author has written a scholarly history of the the struggle for equality and carefully researched his subject and every chapter resonates in today's headlines. Highly recommended.

[Bookreporter.com Biography & Memoir · Rating 5 out of 5]

Regardless of ideology, there’s a relatively short list of United States Supreme Court cases that deserve to be included in any legal Hall of Shame. One is Dred Scott v. Sandford, holding that slaves were the property of their owners and not citizens of the United States. A second is Korematsu v. United States, upholding the internment of Japanese-American citizens during World War II. And a third --- falling roughly at the midpoint between these two odious decisions --- is Plessy v. Ferguson, the 1896 case in which the court, with only one justice dissenting, rejected a challenge to a Louisiana statute that mandated “equal but separate accommodations for the white and colored passengers traveling on trains in the state.”

Now, in SEPARATE, a work of impressive scope, depth and sensitivity, longtime Washington Post senior editor Steve Luxenberg (ANNIE’S GHOSTS) revisits the historical and legal roots of Plessy. Acknowledging that he’s “not a legal scholar or a constitutional historian,” Luxenberg describes himself as a “storyteller with a passion for narrative history.” But as he immerses himself deeply in the extensive documentary record, he demonstrates both a mastery of those disciplines and a skill at evoking a vivid sense of America's bitter struggles over civil rights in the 19th century. Even before its publication, his talent was recognized, when SEPARATE won the 2016 J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award.

Though this reality is often obscured by legal arcana, many important Supreme Court cases have a deeply human essence. In traversing some six decades of American history, Luxenberg wisely has chosen to ground his narrative in the stories of four principal characters: Supreme Court justices Henry Billings Brown, the author of the Plessy majority opinion, and John M. Harlan, the sole dissenter; Albion Tourgée, lead counsel for Homer Plessy; and Louis Martinet, head of the Citizens Committee to Test the Constitutionality of the Separate Car Law in New Orleans. These men moved “on separate paths to a shared destination, connected by time, culture, happenstance, and the unresolved struggle between an exhausted North and a bitter South.”

Luxenberg is a leisurely narrator, and doesn’t settle fully into the story of Plessy --- from its inception a carefully engineered test case intended to reach the Supreme Court --- until the final 100 pages of the book. But all that precedes the account of the case’s protracted path to a resolution (nearly four years elapsed from the decision of the Louisiana Supreme Court to the Supreme Court’s ruling) is essential to understanding it. Most critical to that understanding is that, when it came to the origins of the Jim Crow laws, it was the “free and conflicted North that gave birth to separation, in different places and in different forms.”

Reviewing cases from Massachusetts, Michigan and Pennsylvania, Luxenberg thoroughly describes how the practice of separation in public transportation agitated northern lawmakers and courts long before it became an issue in the post-Civil War South. That region, he explains, was insulated from the need to confront the issue in the era of slavery, a time that required "close contact, coercion, and even intimacy to survive and prosper." Indeed, all but one of the members of the Plessy majority hailed from Northern states, a fact that might surprise readers who could be excused for assuming that the decision was the product of a group of embittered Southerners, fanning the embers of revenge.

Of his quartet of protagonists, Harlan and Tourgée are clearly the most complex and fascinating. Born into a slaveholding family in Kentucky, though he fought for the Union in the Civil War, Harlan’s views on racial equality evolved from his early days in public life in the turbulent 1850s as a member of the anti-immigrant Know Nothing (later American) Party. By 1883, he was the author of a vigorous dissent in the Civil Rights Cases, the 8-1 ruling that struck down the Civil Rights Act of 1875, foreshadowing the Court's decision in Plessy.

Ohioan Tourgée, also a Civil War veteran, lived a colorful and peripatetic life that included 14 years in post-war North Carolina, where he ran unsuccessfully for Congress, served as a judge and became a "potent force in North Carolina's Republican Party." A prolific writer, he published a bestselling novel about Reconstruction, A FOOL’S ERRAND, BY ONE OF THE FOOLS, and wrote a nationally circulated column under the pen name “the Bystander,” which made him, in Luxenberg's view, "arguably, the best-known white advocate for civil rights in the country." Tourgée was the lawyer responsible for crafting the ultimately unsuccessful arguments in Plessy, ones that failed utterly, as Luxenberg explains, though not in any way owing to a lack of originality.

Until 1954, when a unanimous Supreme Court, in Brown v. Board of Education, ruled that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal,” Plessy's legal blessing of segregation spawned more than half a century of racial division and conflict, not only in the South but also throughout the United States. For all the good done by that reversal, Brown could not erase the long shadow of Plessy and its toxic legacy. Anyone who wants to understand Plessy in its own time and in the decades that followed will find Steve Luxenberg’s SEPARATE an ideal starting point.

Reviewed by Harvey Freedenberg

[Porter Broyles · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book might have gotten more stars from me had it lived up to its billing or changed its title. The title "Separate: the story of Plessy v. Ferguson, and America's Journey from Slavery to Segregation."

That's a pretty big broad description. But the book wasn't big and broad, it's what I call a micro history. It tells the story of three key men (Torgue, Brown, and Harlan) and a little New Orleans.

With the big three, the book goes into excruciating details convering their lives---I didn't need that much information about their romantic pursuits and life during the Civil War.

I was hoping for more information on how Plessy came into being. More in regards to the legal cases that had worked their was through Court that shaped the issue. More on the legislative processes that made the case a necessity.

Instead I got bogged down in the mundane details of the big 3. By the time I got to the section discussing the case, the book had loss me.

Had the book indicated that it was a biography on the people behind Plessy v Ferguson I might have liked it more.

Instead I feel as if the author failed to live up to the promise of the title.

[Joshua · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is an excellent history of the infamous Plessy v. Ferguson decision and the characters behind the case. Keep in mind that most of the book is about the journey from slavery to segregation rather than the case itself which is discussed primarily in the final fifty pages or so.

[Bill Tyroler · Rating 5 out of 5]

The story of Plessy v. Ferguson? Not quite; more like, biographical sketches of several figures closely connected to the notorious case that upheld segregated railroad travel following the failure of Reconstruction. These are primarily Albion Tourgée (principal attorney for Plessy); Henry Billings Brown (author of majority opinion); John Marshall Harlan (lone dissenter). Their stories are interesting, to be sure, but by the time Steve Luxenberg reaches the argument and decision, they seem anti-climactic and largely afterthoughts. Certainly, the account is highly accessible and, as a broad but superficial introduction to the "journey from slavery to" Plessy, successful. But as any kind of refined look? A missed opportunity, I'm afraid. (For a more detailed examination of the case, yet canvassing much of the same territory as Luxenberg, I'd strongly suggest Charles A, Lofgren's "The Plessy Case: A Legal-Historical Interpretation," https://www.goodreads.com/review/show.... Not easy reading, to be sure, therefore not for the casual reader, but highly rewarding. And, unlike the present book, quite living up to its subtitle.)

ADDED: I had the nagging suspicion I'd missed something first time around, and re-read it after 3 years. Did I ever miss something. True, if you're looking for detailed analysis of the legal arguments in Plessy, Lofgren's book would be your destination. But this is a superb history, the writing graceful and accessible. And the idea of canvassing the "journey to Plessy" through the eyes of Tourgee, Harlan and Brown is inspired.

[Douglas Fugate · Rating 5 out of 5]

SEPARATE: The Story of Plessy vs Ferguson, and America’s Journey from Slavery to Segregation by Steve Luxenberg

The vote was 7 to 1. Justice H.B. Brown wrote the majority opinion. Justice John Marshall Harlan wrote the sole dissenting opinion. It was the Supreme Court decision on case Plessy vs Ferguson. Briefly, it stated – SEPARATE is Equal.
In 1954, with the case Brown vs The Board of Education, Justice John Marshall Harlan proved to be correct and the Plessy decision was overturned. The Supreme Court determined that Separate Was NOT Equal.
Mr. Luxenberg has written a thorough history of the people involved; major historic events and how they intertwined to determine both the reason for the case, and decision of the Supreme Court. Albion W. Tourgee, John Marshall Harlan, Henry Billings Brown, the Dred Scott decision, The Civil War, Reconstruction, Frederick Douglass, George Washington Carver and W.E.B. DuBois all play a key part in the story.
This is a superb work. The subject is applicable to today as it was in the 1890s.
I highly recommend this book for everyone interested in the Civil Rights movement, The Supreme Court, or The United States Constitution.
I cannot praise this work enough.

[David Britten · Rating 5 out of 5]

A well-researched and written book centered around three key figures in the run-up to the Supreme Court's 1896 decision that "separate but equal" is the law of the land: Justice John Marshall Harlan (the Great Dissenter), Justice Henry Billings Brown from Massachusetts and Michigan (who wrote for the majority), and Albion Tourgee, noted author who was an outspoken proponent of equality and who led the Plessy legal team. Luxenberg ushers all three from their earliest days, then through the Civil War, followed by Reconstruction, and ultimately on the path to meet that tragic April day in 1896. Their lives are captivating; the ironies and absurdities revealing. At the same time, the reader will find the sudden emancipation, segregation, and exclusion (even elimination, aka, lynching) heartbreaking. To better understand the continuing (and some might say growing) racist concerns America is experiencing today, you'll want to read this book.

[Lynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very Upsetting

This history is really upsetting and enlightens me on how the Republican \Federalist society judiciary is planning to argue against civil rights in the future. This story is about how a group of important white lawyers and supreme court whittled away civil rights for Black people in order reassert the white supremacist order. Please vs. Ferguson was the ruling that settled White Supremacy again in the country after some attempts to include African Americans and minorities into civil life. Trains were a miracle in transportation and the effort was to control and prevent movement. The ruling was very controversial even then but staid the law of the land for almost 70 years. It brought forth more laws against immigration and refugees. I didn't know the background of Plessy vs. Ferguson except for barebones facts. I feel I need to read more to get a better handle on it. This was a big introduction.

[Joseph Stieb · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was kind of an odd book that was good in some ways but doesn't deliver much on the title. To borrow from sports parlance, it's a bit of a tweener (a player who fits uncomfortably between roles or positions). I was expecting a significant focus on Plessey v Ferguson and similar cases; the author kind of does this, looking at racial separation cases starting in the North before the Civil War and then refocusing on the South post-war and all the cases that led up to Plessey. He does get to Plessey, but only in the last 10% of the book, even though the treatment of the case is clear and interesting. The author also just ends the story with Plessey and the interesting point that it wasn't seen as a big deal when the ruling came out, but he doesn't follow up with how segregationists ran with Plessey to totally structure life in the South for the next 60 years. In short, he should have told us how Plessey reshaped America. This was a huge missed opportunity!

But this book is really a joint biography of the people who eventually shaped the Plessey case. The main and most interesting character is Albion Tourgee, who fought in the Civil War, moved South during Reconstruction, became a famous writer and civil rights advocate, and helped argue in Plessey's favor. He is kind of forgotten now but was a major figure for racial justice in his time. Next is John Marshall Harlan, who wrote the lone dissent in Plessey. Harlan was actually the child of the slave-holding family and briefly owned slaves through his wife. Nonetheless, he was a staunch Unionist who came to see efforts at segregation as efforts to write color into the law. He was, in many ways, the author of the idea of a colorblind Constitution, arguing in the Plessey case that the real purpose of segregation laws like those on train cars was to keep blacks away from white spaces and mark blacks with inferiority. He firmly believed white people should remain socio-economically dominant, but he opposed writing that domination explicitly into the law, and as he aged he increasingly called for better treatment of racial minorities. He was a flawed man who nonetheless anticipated the damage that Plessey would cause to American society.

The third main character was the least interesting: Henry Billings Brown, a northerner who ended up writing the majority opinion in Plessey. There wasn't much compelling about him tbh, and the sections on him tended to drag on. In Plessey, he advanced a dubious set of arguments that reflected his willful ignorance of black/white dynamics in the South. He argued that the law could not enforce good relations btw the races (of course, how could black and white come to respect each other if they are constantly separated?), which of course was not the purpose of the 14th amendment. He took an extremely limited view of this amendment, basically arguing that unless explicit racial discrimination was written into the law then that amendment wasn't violated. This opened a massive hole in the law for segregationists to segregate pretty much every aspect of life. He also argued that separation did not necessarily mean inferiority for African-Americans, although one glance at a black or white school or train car would have shown that in reality it did. Brown is a good representative of someone who prioritized white healing and national reconciliation from the Civil War over the position of black people as equal, which was a much more common viewpoint than Tourgee's pursuit of justice.

Finally, the 4th main character is Plessey, but only kind of. Plessey was descended from free black "gens de couleur" in New Orleans, a fascinating community that came to greatly resent Jim Crow segregation and who led the charge in lawsuits like Plessey v Ferguson. But you don't really learn much about Plessey himself in this book.

This last point speaks to the strange nature of this book. You can learn a decent amount about what the book title's seems to promise, but in reality you will spend most of your time on the biographies of the major white characters, who aren't always interesting enough to carry the story. The author goes way too in depth on their mundane personal lives, financial travails, travels, and so on, and while these biographies give a sense of the spectrum of white opinion on race and the law, they don't interact enough with this theme to justify their length.

I think the author should have greatly condensed these biographies and focus more on the theme of separation laws going from before the Civil War leading up to Plessey, and then actually explained how Plessey led to the reshaping of the south on strict racial lines. So the book isn't quite a biography, but not quite a study of race, ideas, and laws, which leaves the reader somewhat in the lurch. It's about 20 hours to listen to, but it should have been maybe 10, more like Eric Foner's outstanding and slim volume on how the Reconstruction Amendments transformed the Constitution. So I left this book with weird feelings and don't really recommend it.

[Paul Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an exhaustively researched, lively and compelling account of the issues and characters behind the Plessy v. Ferguson decision, and how the Supreme Court justices of the day arrived at the infamous ruling legalizing racial separation in public accommodations nationwide in the US. Their 1896 ruling wasn't overturned until 1954.
Luxenberg creates fascinating, at times quite intimate biographical portraits of main characters on all sides of the story. If you've ever asked yourself what Supreme Court justices and other concerned people were thinking leading up to this momentous ruling, and why, this book will be a great help.
Parallels to the present day quickly emerge, and Luxenberg pulls no punches in exposing the institutionalized, brazen racism of the pre- and post-Civil War eras. Kentucky comes off especially poorly, but plenty of other states share the ignominy.
This book should be required reading in college-level American history courses. For the rest of us, it's an engrossing and necessary read, especially valuable as we grapple with the responsibilities of citizenship in our own socially unstable and unpredictable era.

[Rod White · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well written tale of a nasty decision

I can't remember the last time I could not wait to get back to reading a book! And this one was a history book! I had been lamenting my lack of knowledge about the evil of Jim Crow and happened upon this book from its NYT review. I would have been pleased with a straightforward history But the author designed his book like a novel, tracing the main characters from long before the civil war until they meet at the Plessy v. Ferguson travesty. I am delighted with the exhaustive research and careful, colorful, even loving writing. The footnotes are not to be missed.

[Phyllis · Rating 3 out of 5]

A well-researched and written book, but ultimately a frustrating read. One must slog through mini-biographies of almost all concerned, minus Homer Plessy, who gets maybe a minute of screen time, before getting to the meat of the story-how Plessy v. Ferguson came about, and why-which occurs at about page 400, with 105 pages to go. Talk about burying the lede. There is much to learn in Luxenberg's book, but it would have benefited from strong editing (wishful thinking in today's publishing world, I know) and a different structure.

[Nathan Albright · Rating 4 out of 5]

Given the fact that the author works for the Washington Post, a newspaper that is better used for litter boxes and toilet paper and composting than for reading, it is amazing that the author is able to string grammatically correct sentences together in a coherent fashion.  It is less surprising that the author spends about 80% of the book's considerable heft talking about the context of the case and only about 20% talking about the case as it worked its way through the Louisiana court system and then to the Supreme Court, a process that took a surprisingly long time.  It is also not a surprise that the author has a bit of an agenda in showing the dissatisfaction of blacks with the bipartisan peace that had been made between Republicans and Democrats to put racial change on the back burner, and in seeking to attack with corporate-minded Republicans and Southern Democrats, as that is the contemporary political coalition that the author has the least degree of fondness for.  Likewise, the author has surprisingly a lot to say about the lives of some of the people involved in the case more than the people the case was actually about, namely the free blacks of various hues of Louisiana.

This book is about 500 pages long (far longer than it needed to be to cover its topic) and is divided into four parts and 22 chapters.  The author begins with a prologue and with a picture of Tourgee upset that he has missed his change to make an epic oral argument in Plessy v. Ferguson, only he hadn't missed his chance, and a cast of characters that focuses around a small set of people:  Harlan of Kentucky, Brown of New England, Tourgee of Ohio, and the free people of color of New Orleans and the rest of the United States.  We see the ambition of the various figures, inevitably involving the law and politics, in the first part of the book, which takes up five chapters and begins with company policies in New England against the seating of blacks in white compartments in the antebellum area.  After that the author looks at the behavior of the various people involved during the Civil War, subtly portraying Brown as a lightweight for not being willing to fight in the Civil War while Harlan and Tougee fight for the Union.  The next four chapters after that look at the rise of the three men in the postwar period and the rise of equal but separate in Louisiana in the North.  There are five more chapters that look at the period of the end of reconstruction and what it meant for blacks and their white supporters, before the last part finally looks at the resistance of blacks to separate but equal that culminated in Plessy v. Furgeson, and a short epilogue that looked at what happened to the main people involved afterward.

In reading a book like this one has to be aware of the different layers involved here.  Among the layers is the author's desire both to impugn the South as well as the North for inabilities in accepting the social equality of blacks with whites in the postwar period.  The author has a strong interest in biography, showing some characters as fierce defenders of racial justice and pointing to the progress others (like Harlan) made.  The author clearly brings some contemporary political agendas as well, subtly portraying those who are pro-business as being unsympathetic to the plight of blacks, and disregarding any hint that the social equality that is (understandably) wanted by blacks and others is something that requires the free consent of the whites involved.  Indeed, the whole books smacks of coercion, both the coercion of unreconstructed Southern whites who wanted to preserve as much of the antebellum system of racial domination in the postwar period and the coercion that blacks sought through Congress and the Supreme Court to defend their own interests.  And I could not help but be troubled by that approach.

[Neal Leslie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book isn't exactly what I had expected. It's much more than the story of Plessy vs Ferguson. It's really more of a history of Jim Crow and legal separation beginning with the railroads of the 1830s up to the famous Supreme Court case. Luxenberg masterly weaves this tale by focusing on the biographies of 3 men involved in the case - Albion Tourgee, Henry Brown and John Harlan. There even seems to be a literary aspect to his style, where the chapters devoted to each man got shorter and their paths even crossed in some, foretelling their eventual collision in 1896. Two of them would be Supreme Court Justices at the time while Tourgee represented Homer Plessy involved in a staged arrest to overturn Lousisiana's new law mandating separate railway cars for black and white.

John Harlan in particular stood out. Born in Kentucky, a slave state which fought on the Union side, Harlan's progress to civil rights was extremely gradual. But got there he did. In 1883 the Civil Rights Bill of 1875 was challenged in court. This bill essentially made Jim Crow illegal but was haphasardly enforced. At the time most separation was done by private businesses which many, including several judges, argued had the legal rights to serve whom they pleased. Harlan was the only member of the court to dissent when the bill was declared unconstitutional. It's even more remarkable considering that Harlan was also the only southerner and a former slave owner. Luxenberg relays a very touching story of Harlan's 'writer's block' on writing the dissent. In Harlan's possession was the inkwell that Taney used to write the notorious Dred Scot decision. Harlan had recently promised the artifact to one of Taney's relatives but Harlan's wife knowing how much her husband prized the possession actually hid it. She confessed her 'crime' and with the inkwell in hand the words flowed. Harlan eviscerated his fellow justices, arguing that the 13th amendment's aim was more than merely to free the slaves and that racial discrimination violated its spirit and intent if society reimposed the slavery caste system.

In any case the 1883 decision opened a path for states to actually institutionalize Jim Crow. Several states began enacting laws segregating railway cars. Louisiana was chosen as a test case for challenging these laws because of their rich creole history where the distinction between white and black was often not clear. Homer Plessy was said to be 1/8th black but could often pass as white. One of Albion's argument was the onus placed on railway conductors to tell who was white or black; also each state had its own definition of what was considered black. What if a woman was traveling with a black child, Albion asked? Was it safe to separate mother and child? Albion also introduced some unique perspectives such as race as a form of property. In essense being white had a monetary value and forcing blacks to ride in segregated cars not only was degrading but deprived them of property which was a violation of the 14th amendment. As we all know the Supreme Court ruled against Plessy and thus began 100 years of institutionalized Jim Crow. Once again Harlen was the only Justice to dissent.

Luxenberg is a talented writer and this work is a pleasure to read. Very engrossing and a real page turner. Harlen and Tourgee really shine as beacons for humanity and civil rights.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having recently finished David Blight's biography on Frederick Douglas, I wanted to read more about the legal system surrounding his being thrown from a train as a Black man, and what exactly the implications were in trying to change that law. Plessy v Ferguson posited a few interesting points: If a train maintained that Blacks needed to ride in a separate car from Whites, who's to determine who's Black? The conductor had to make judgements on the fly. What if you're a mix? What if you're 7/8ths White? Does the 1/8th override the other 7/8s? Does the conductor, without the benefit of a portable DNA test, simply look at how dark the passengers skin is? Do you simply ask each passenger if they're Black or White? That's what Albion Tourgee wanted to get to at the heart of the case. If you could segregate people in a train car, what's to stop cities forcing Blacks to walk on one side of the street and Whites the other? What was to stop schools from saying that they had to separate the races into "separate but equal" classrooms? Needless to say, that's exactly what happened until Brown v Board of Education, but this took place almost 60 years earlier. What would've happened had the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Tourgee? Would the country have fallen back into Civil War? Would racial equality be 60 years more advanced that it is now? This book doesn't delve into those possibilities, but rather focuses on the three key figures of the case: Justice John Harlan (who famously dissented and had spent considerable time in the South), Justice Henry Brown, (who wrote for the majority), and Albion, who led the Plessy legal team.

Very well researched, though keep in mind this book really focuses on the men of the case rather than Civil Rights movement itself. I'm still searching for that book.

[Drtaxsacto · Rating 5 out of 5]

With all of the nonsense from the Critical Race Theorists in the last two years (for example Robin DiAngelo and White Fragility - reviewed earlier and the NYT Times 1619 fraudulent project) this book is a welcome and partial response.

Luxenberg does a comprehensive review of the development of the ideas of separation among the races that began in the middle part of the Nineteenth Century. He does detailed sections on both the development of this case (which is often bookended with Brown V Bd. of Education) and wonderful descriptions of all of the major players.

Plessy, like Dred Scott, is a blot on our history. In today's thinking it is horrible. But that is not the story of the case. The real story about Plessy is twofold. First, while there were some terrible policies created in the Post Civil War period, there is plenty of evidence that a sizable portion of the population conscientiously tried to change them with an understanding of the "promissory note" (as Dr. King called it) in the Declaration of Independence. The country evolved, slowly but almost consistently in a positive direction. Second, Luxenberg presents thinking of the time non-judgmentally - as a historian should - presenting the history not his current political views. On matters of race that is a very rare quantity. His skills at explaining the thinking and the interactions of the players in this fight is superb.

In order to not repeat the errors of the past, one needs to understand that past. Luxenberg's treatment of this case is through and very readable. This is one of the best histories that I have read in the last several years.

[Gerry Durisin · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story behind the "separate but equal" decision is narrated by Luxenberg within its historical context, including the fierce resentment of Southern states (and citizens) of Reconstruction, the gradual development of Jim Crow laws that allowed the South to continue its oppression of the former slaves, and the ambivalence of those in the North who had fought for union and with it, emancipation, without ever really committing themselves to equality between the races. The tortured logic of the majority decision stands in marked contrast to the lone dissent filed by Justice John Marshall Harlan, but his voice ultimately prevailed, though not for many years, when the Supreme Court overturned Plessy v. Ferguson with its decision in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954.

Luxenberg spoke at the Free Library of Philadelphia in February, and his presentation was so engaging, I downloaded his book the next day.

This is the first book I've regretted reading in Kindle format, because the last hundred or so pages included detailed notes that I didn't see until I'd read the entire book. In a "real" book, I'd have noticed those from the beginning.

[Alex Templeton · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was not quite what I was expecting. I was expecting a whole history of the Plessy v. Ferguson case, which I got, but Luxenberg chose to structure the book by telling the story of the history that led up to this landmark case by following the biographies of the men who were involved in the case - the lawyer for Plessy, Albion Tourgee; Supreme Court justice (and author of the majority decision, I think) Henry Billings Brown; and the one dissenting Supreme Court justice, John Harlan. Sometimes the amount of biographical detail was a bit exhaustive and exhausting, and it was definitely a long read for someone who doesn't do a lot of historical long reads, but I am glad I stuck with it. Through the snapshots of the lives of these individual men, I got a larger picture of the history of inequity in this country.

[Jeff Radler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simply put....an excellent & powerful story of “separate but equal”, and some of the key players who fought this battle in the 19th century....leading up to the awful defeat of “Plessy v. Ferguson” which helped sustain the cruel separation of people of color in society. My favorite character was John Harlan, ironically from the South, who was the sole dissenter of the Plessy Supreme Court case. His dissent should be read by all for its prescience of what was to come over the next century in terms of race relations.....as well as providing an example of personal courage & character.

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great read! Tells the history of how “separate but equal” became the legal basis for segregation in the South. Albion Toutgee’s pleadings and Justice John Harlin’s dissent predicted the course of events that became Jim Crow. Brown vs Board of Education corrected the “sin” of Plessy. A wonderful lesson in the sad story of our race relations.

[Dayla · Rating 5 out of 5]

Especially poignant: How much the United States lossed at an intersection in the late 19th century that could have furthered justice (miles ahead of where we are right now) and nurtured some of our most profound and gracious citizens.

Instead, prejudice and injustice persisted for another 80 years until the Civil Rights Act of 1965. And yet, 2020, we still have voting rights taken away.

[Cropredy · Rating 4 out of 5]

What with the United States revisiting civil rights (I'm writing this review in 2025) and specifically Justice Thomas asserting in 2024 that Brown v. Board of Education was incorrectly decided, I thought I would read about the case that Brown v. Board of Education overturned - specifically, Plessy v. Ferguson. An extra motivation came from listening to past Supreme Court nomination hearings where some gasbag Senator would question the nominee on their views of Plessy. At the time, I could only infer from context what was being discussed.

Plessy v. Ferguson led to the enactment of laws throughout the South that created separate facilities for whites and blacks - separate schools, separate drinking fountains, separate swimming pools, separate hostelries, etc. The phrase, "separate but equal" is rooted in the Plessy case.

Plessy was decided in 1896. At its root was a Louisiana law that mandated separate passenger cars on the state's railroads for blacks and whites, the black cars being frequently inferior (e.g. no first class seating). Homer Plessy, a mixed race Louisianan, was part of an effort to bring the Louisiana law up to the Supreme Court as a violation of the 13th and 14th Amendments. As an aside, it was interesting to see that the same tactics used today to manufacture a plaintiff to test the constitutionality of a law (see wedding cake maker v. gay rights as an example) were used in the 1890's. Legal minds and advocacy groups were just as sophisticated 130 years ago as today.

The case was decided 7-1 against Plessy. The majority felt that there was nothing unconstitutional in separating the races (14th amendment equal protection clause notwithstanding).

Now, I thought the book would be a 1-2 chapter run up to the case, then a detailed discussion of the arguments, the decision-making, the judgement, and the aftermath. In other words, a book focused on the specific case at hand.

This is not what you get. Instead, there are four narrative threads that run through the 512 pages of text:

* The life and times of Justice John Harlan - a Kentuckian, who wrote the sole dissent
* The life and times of Justice Henry Brown - a Michigander, who wrote the majority opinion
* The life and times of Albion Tourgee, the white activist/lawyer who took up the cause of equal rights for the recently emancipated enslaved peoples and black rights in general
* The story of racial separation on railroads and ships, mostly described in New Orleans but with origins all the way back to the first passenger railroads in Massachusetts.

These threads, in the above order, take up four chapters, then repeat again, 5-10 years later. Since our protagonists were born in the 1840s, we get a lot of biography. This is all possible due to enormous preserved correspondence.

It isn't until page 440 or so that the Plessy case is actually filed so the reader needs to be patient. As such, the book could have been titled:

America's Journey from Slavery to Segregation through the lens of Plessy v. Ferguson

Nevertheless, despite not being the book I thought I was getting, it is superbly written. The book cover states it won the J. Anthony Lukas prize (as a "Work in Progress" in 2016) and other prize winners are exceptional like Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital and Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right so the prize committee knows quality when they see it.

I'd recommend the book to anyone interested in pivotal Supreme Court case history - pivotal in that it shaped America for decades (see also Dred Scott, Roe v. Wade, Madison v. Marbury, etc.). It is a useful historical, readable work that still echoes in today's debates over civil rights.

[Carol Kearns · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was well-written and interesting. It focuses on John Harlan, the only dissenting justice on the Plessy vs Ferguson Supreme Court case of 1896; Henry Billings Brown, the author of the majority opinion on that case; and Albion Tourgee, the author and lawyer that arguably played the largest part in the defense of the case arguing against separate railroad cars in Louisiana. Unfortunately, after this case the United States endured another fifty years of segregation. As the author states, history has recognized the forward-thinking mindset of Justice Harlan, and Mr Tourgee, but Brown’s regressive and divisive opinion, along with his fellow justices, did not age well, and he has been mainly forgotten in American history.

[Rolf · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very thorough read on a very important part of history-in some places it felt a bit TOO thorough (say, when covering the childhoods of Brown and Harlan), and I found myself wanting to get to the “good stuff,” but that is a relatively common problem in history books.

[Peter Bradley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Separate by Steve Luxenberg

https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-re...

This is a wonderful book to bookend with Dred Scott: The Inside Story by David Hardy. both books involve legal decisions affecting race relations in America. Both books leave the reader in amazement about how such learned men of the Supreme Court could be so stupid and dense.

Author Steve Luxenberg approaches the Plessy v. Fergusson legal decision through the biographies of various individuals, particularly Supreme Court Justices John Marshall Harlan and Henry Brown and Albion Tourge, the lawyer and civil rights advocate who argued before the Supreme Court on behalf of Homer Plessy. Luxenberg starts with the early lives of these individuals in the 1850s and follows their lives through the Civil War and into the Guilded Age.

This approach is absolutely fascinating and educational. The reader gets a spectrum of views on American culture during its time of transformation. John Marshall Harlan was the child of an influential, slave-holding Kentucky family who grew up to fight as an officer for the Union and eventually became the only Supreme Court justice to hold that the "Constitution knows no race." Albion Tourgee was a Yankee who joined the Union army as a private soldier in order to free the slaves, moved to the South as a carpet bagger, became an attorney and a successful author and eventually master-minded the losing case for Homer Plessy. Henry Brown was another Yankee lawyer who moved to Michigan and eventually made his way to the Supreme Court to become the author of the infamous Plessy v. Fergusson decision which absurdly rejected the argument that making former slaves segregate from their former masters was inconceivable as a badge or indicia of slavery.

Luxenberg also brings a number of other characters. There is the entire les gens de couleur libres - the free men of color - the entire community of blacks and mulattos in New Orleans, who had never been slave, had fought with Andy Jackson in defense of America and had been cruelly denied their promised equal rights. This community felt deeply the sting of Jim Crow legislation and conspired with the railroads to bring a test case. For the test case, they provided Homer Plessy, who could pass as white, to be arrested for refusing to leave the white coach. It may come as a surprise for some to find that the railroads opposed the Jim Crow laws because of the expense of running the extra cars for a few customers.

Frederick Douglas is also an important part of this book. I was impressed by this person, who I had never really knew, that I picked up the new Frederick Douglas biography.

Luxenberg writes very well. He seems very sympathetic to his subjects, even Justice Brown, who, at times comes across as shallow social climber. At times, Luxenberg can tug on the heart strings as his subjects leave their lives, which leaves none unscarred by tragedy.

I was surprised to find that Plessy was not considered an important case until the legacy of Jim Crow was dismantled in the 1950s. Perhaps the most important legacy of Plessy v. Fergusson was simply the dissent of John Marshall Harlan, which put a marker down on the promise that America should not be a racial state.

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most of us have heard of the Supreme Court Case Plessy vs Ferguson which is synonymous with “separate but equal.” Most of us do not know the back story. The author of “Separate: The Story of Plessy vs Ferguson and America’s Journey from Slavery to Segregation” goes into great detail about the characters and background of the major players who were involved in bringing this case to the Supreme Court. Plessy was the case which legalized segregation and Jim Crow laws for decades until the landmark Brown vs Board of Education Supreme Court ruling in 1954 that overturned Plessy and finally legally asserted that separate was not equal at all.

There were many things I learned from reading this book. One of the most interesting people I learned about was an abolitionist that I had never heard of named Albion Tourgee. Tourgee served as a Union solder during the Civil War and was captured and held in a prisoner of war camp in the Confederacy. After the war, Albion was released to the North and during reconstruction, he moved to North Carolina and lived there for 15 years in an effort to bring equal rights to those who had been enslaved. Tourgee was the lawyer who argued the Plessy case in the Supreme Court. The legal argument he made was very logical and reasonable but nevertheless he lost the decision 7-1. (One justice was absent due to a serious family illness.) Another really interesting person I learned about was John Marshall Harlan. He was the only dissenter in Plessy vs Ferguson and had a history of dissenting opinions during his long term on the Supreme Court.

Interesting fact: The Plessy vs Ferguson case was a test case set up by activists who wanted to use this case in order to overturn the Separate Car Law in Louisiana. The law mandated that there be different train cars for people of color and white people. Train conductors were tasked with determining whether someone was white or “colored” which was particularly difficult since there were many people of mixed race in Louisiana, especially in New Orleans. In addition, many people had some dark skinned or “colored” ancestors who had never been slaves at all. Homer Plessy was chosen for the test case because according to his ancestry, he was 1/8 “colored” and 7/8 white and he looked white. While there have been photos of Homer Plessy in books and online, they are not actually Homer Plessy. There are no known pictures of Homer Plessy. The picture commonly shown as Homer Plessy is not really him. It’s actually P.B.S. Pinchback who was misidentified as Homer Plessy and the mistake became accepted as truth through repetition.

This book is certainly not an easy read but it’s worth the time and effort.

[Oliver · Rating 5 out of 5]

A well-written and paced history of the infamous Supreme Court decision from 1896, cementing "separate but equal" as the law of the land, allowing for the depredations of segregation throughout the country (primarily the South) for the next 60 years. Not only does the book provide historical context for this case, it also delves into the lives of the most prominent figures in this matter: Justice John Marshall Harlan, Justice Henry Billings Brown and Albion Tourgee. Harlan, in early life a pro-slavery son of Kentucky, gradually altered his views of Constitutional equality, writing a scathing dissent in Plessy v. Fergusson that mirrored his most famous dissent in what are known as the Civil Rights cases. Brown wrote the majority opinion in Plessy and, while the book provides a full biography of him, the reader can rightly place him in the trash heap of history. Just as actual blindness would ultimately conquer him, his opinion is purposely blind to the legal and moral implications of his ruling [7-1 against Plessy]. Tourgee, the plainfif's most eloquent legal advisor (there were three total), is a quixotic figure who was unremittingly insistent that the newly passed 13th and 14th Amendments granted all persons of color equal rights. I can't help but see in Brown a mirror image in the current Supreme Court Justice John Roberts. Both men, white, rich and powerful fail to show the ability to empathize with persons of color, Brown in Plessy, Roberts in his gutting of the Voter Rights Act. Both men's decisions have opened a Pandora's Box of societal evils. Anyway, this is a great read.

[Lin F · Rating 5 out of 5]

A highly readable narrative told through the eyes of three key players: John Harlan, Henry Billings Brown, and Albion Tourgee, and one city, New Orleans, and their roles in events that led to the Plessy v Ferguson decision. Luxenberg starts back in the 1830's, outlining the backgrounds of these men and the court cases related to, and ultimately influencing, the Plessy v. Ferguson decision.

I was completely captivated by the story, and looking back with the view of 2019, found so many of the events frustrating. The book does have a lot of detail and backstory, but I feel that this was important and necessary in order to fully understand the culture of the times, the prejudices that the men brought to the case, and how these influenced the decision. Justice Harlan's dissenting opinion gave me goosebumps- I'd love to find the complete text and read it.

My one suggestion for improvement to the book would be in the arrangement of the early parts compared to the later ones. In the last two parts of the book, when all the men's stories start to converge, Luxenberg tells the story chronologically, but in the first three parts he divides the chapters up according to each main character. This made it a little choppy at first and required me to refresh my memory with each new chapter. Not a major complaint, just a slight annoyance. A 5 star book for me and one of the best I've read this year.