John ferguson vs plessy

John Howard Ferguson June 10, — November 12, was an American lawyer and judge from Louisiana, most famous as the defendant in the Plessy v. Ferguson case. Ferguson was born the third and last child to Baptist parents John H. Young Ferguson's family was all but wiped out between and , and after the Civil War ended, and he had completed his legal studies in Boston under the tutelage of Benjamin F.

Hallett, Ferguson moved to New Orleans in There he met and married in July , Virginia Butler Earhart, daughter of Thomas Jefferson Earhart, a staunch and outspoken abolitionist from Pennsylvania. The house still stands today and is designated a historical landmark of the Orleans Parish Landmarks Commission. Ferguson served in the Louisiana Legislature and practiced law in New Orleans until he was tapped in for a judgeship at the criminal district court, Section A, for the Parish of New Orleans, Louisiana.

There he presided over the case Homer Adolph Plessy v. The State of Louisiana. The case was brought by Homer Plessy and eventually led to the infamous Plessy v. He is buried with his wife and other Earhart family members in Lafayette Cemetery 1 in the old part of New Orleans. Medley took place as scheduled.

Who is john ferguson

Keith Plessy and Phoebe Ferguson, two of the descendants of both participants of the Supreme Court case, announced the creation of the Plessy and Ferguson Foundation for Education, Preservation and Outreach. The foundation strives to teach the history of civil rights through film, art, and public programs designed to create understanding of this historic case and its legacy on the American conscience.

While many consider the civil rights movement to have begun in the s, communities were organizing for equal rights much earlier in the U.