Plessy Day at New Orleans Jazz Museum

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Published on: May 31st, 2017

"Plessy Day: 125 Years of Resistance & Achievement" will be held at the New Orleans Jazz Museum inside the Old U.S. Mint on June 7 from 6-8p. The event is free and open to the public. 

For the evening, the New Orleans National Historial Park is partnering with the Plessy and Ferguson Foundation and the Museum. The landmark Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court case in 1896 established a "separate but equal" doctrine that remained standard in U.S. law until its repudiation in the 1954 Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education. The case became a milestone in American history and was a catalyst to institutionalized racism in the United States for much of the 20th century. The court case was drawn from an incident near the corner of Press and Royal in New Orleans in which Homer Plessy was arrested in an act of civil disobedience for violating the "Separate Car Act" by sitting in the whites-only railway car.

The event will include a presentation by Keith Plessy, a descendant of Homer A. Plessy, New Orleans native, a graduate of John McDonogh High School and NOCCA, and president of the Plessy and Ferguson Foundation. Music will be provided by the Carl LeBlanc Band and a panel discussion on "The Emergence of Jazz in the Homer Plessy Era" will include input from Dr. Michael White, Dr. Brice Miller, Freddi Evans, and Professor Jesse McBride.

For more information, see plessyandferguson.org.

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