Civil Rights Activist. He is remembered as the plaintiff in the 1896 landmark United States Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson, which sanctioned the controversial "Separate but Equal" doctrine for assessing the constitutionality of racial laws. Although he could have been easily considered "white" with his ancestry being 7/8 Caucasian , the law considered him as "Colored." Following his step-father's trade of a shoemaker, he also followed him in his political beliefs of the Unification Movement, a civil rights organization formed in the 1870s, which had people work across racial lines, seeking political equality for all and an end to discrimination based on the color of one's skin. First, he unsuccessfully challenged the segregation of New Orleans, Louisiana's public schools. Since the wealthier white residents of the city sent their children to one of the nearly 200 private schools, the public schools had financial difficulties, causing the African American children to receive a substandard education with a high drop-out rate, which often led to a life of crime. His group did attempt to establish a library system and more qualified teachers in the public school system. On June 7, 1892, he purchased a first-class seat on a train. When the conductor questioned him about his race, he replied "Colored." With that he was ordered to the colored section of the train even though he had purchased a first-class ticket. He refused to move, the train was stopped, and he was dragged from the train by white passengers and the police. He spent the night in jail for breaking the Separate Car Act Volume 1 Section Act 111, 1890. His bond was posted for $5,000 and for four months, his lawyers maintained the Separate Car Act was unconstitutional based on the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which banned slavery. In addition, the stated action against him was based on the decision of a mere railroad conductor without due process. In the long run, he failed to prove his case first in the circuit court where Judge John Howard Ferguson preceded over the case. Then the case was taken to the State of Louisiana Supreme Court in 1893 without any success. Conditions in the South were quickly deteriorating for African Americans. With the support of members of the African-American community including former Union soldiers, writers and artists, along with some high-ranking politicians, he continued to fight for his cause. By the time the United States Supreme Court ruled on the case on May 18, 1896, the racial tensions were stressed. The case, which bore the name Plessy v Ferguson, upheld that the Louisiana Separate Car Act was not in violation of neither the 13th Amendment nor the 14th Amendment. The accommodations on the train for both white and the colored were said "to be separate but equal." The ruling established a solid start of the Jim Crow era and legalizing apartheid in the United States. At this point, he changed his plea to guilty, paid the $25 fine, and lived the remaining years of his life quietly in New Orleans working as a laborer, warehouse worker, clerk, and in 1910 became the collector for a black-owned insurance company. He did support the activities in the African-American community. Being one of the initial stepping stones for the Civil Rights Movement, his actions were the start of the soon-organized The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1909 and the overturning of the Jim Crow laws with the Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954. Starting June 7, 2005 New Orleans has recognized this man with "Homer A. Plessy Day" annually with activities. Besides the marker on his grave giving his contribution to history, there is a historical marker at the site of his arrest: the corner of Royal and newly renamed Homer Plessy Way in New Orleans. Even in the city's most strained economical times, plans for a park named in his honor with a historical display have been made. On 15 November 2021, the Louisiana Board of Pardons voted to clear his criminal record. On January 6, 2022 Louisiana Governor Bel Edwards signed the posthumous pardon for Plessy near the site of the 1896 arrest with the statement "there is no expiration on justice."