May 18, 1896: Plessy v. Ferguson Ruling

Teaching Activity. By Linda Christensen. Rethinking Schools. 21 pages.
Role play and writing activities for language arts and social studies on Brown v. Board and the Little Rock Nine. Designed for use with the memoir Warriors Don’t Cry.

Article. By Keith W. Medley.
The role of the Comité des Citoyens and The Crusader newspaper in the Plessy v. Ferguson case.

Article. By Richard Dana.
A group of students at Kent State University-Ashtabula helped secure local recognition for Reconstruction era lawyer and writer Albion Tourgee, including a historical marker at his birthplace.

Book — Non-fiction. By Blair L. M. Kelley. 2010. 280 pages.
Examines acts of protest and resistance to segregated trains and streetcars during the early Jim Crow era.

Book — Non-fiction. By Lawrence Goldstone. 2021.
A portrait of the road to the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case.

Book — Non-fiction. By Mia Bay. 2021. 400 pages.
From stagecoaches and trains to buses, cars, and planes, this book explores racial restrictions on transportation and resistance to the injustice.

Book — Non-fiction. By Keith Medley. 2012. 256 pages.
This book documents the untold history of the organizing leading up the Plessy v. Ferguson case.

Digital collection. The work of Dr. Louis Charles Roudanez, founder of the first Black daily newspaper in the U.S., the New Orleans Tribune, with articles, excerpts, videos, and a timeline.

Staged ride-ins during Reconstruction in South Carolina were among the first (recorded) organized protests of segregation on a streetcar.

African Americans in Richmond, Virginia organized protests against segregated streetcars.

Homer Plessy was arrested for violating Louisiana’s Separate Car Act.

African Americans in Little Rock organized a boycott and “we walk” league to protest the Streetcar Segregation Act.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that, in the case of nine-year old Chinese-American Martha Lum, her exclusion on account of race from school was justified.

After decades of organizing and strategic efforts by parents, teachers, lawyers, and more — the U.S. Supreme Court issued the unanimous decision in Brown v. Board of Education on school segregation.