**Update: On January 5, 2022, Louisiana governor John Bel Edwards posthumously pardoned Homer Plessy under Louisiana’s 2006 Avery Alexander Act that allows pardons for persons “who ha[ve] been convicted of violating a state law or municipal ordinance the purpose of which was to maintain or enforce racial separation or discrimination of individuals.”**
On the afternoon of June 7, 1892 a gentleman purchased a first class train ticket in New Orleans. Following departure he was asked a question by the conductor that would lead to one of the most famous cases in United States Supreme Court history: “Are you a colored man?” The passenger was Homer Plessy. His refusal to move to the “colored car” resulted in his arrest and charges for violation of the Louisiana Separate Car Act — a law that was then only two years old.