The concept of "Separate But Equal" stems from the legal doctrine established by the United States Supreme Court in the 1896 landmark case Plessy v. Ferguson. The case involved Homer Plessy, a Black man who refused to sit in a segregated railroad car designated for whites only. The Court upheld the constitutionality of state laws requiring racial segregation in public facilities, as long as the facilities for Black and white people were deemed "separate but equal."

This doctrine led to the institutionalization of racial segregation in the United States, including in schools, public transportation, bathrooms, restaurants, and other public spaces. In reality, however, the facilities designated for Black individuals were almost always inferior in quality and resources compared to those for white individuals.

The "Separate But Equal" doctrine was the legal justification for the system of segregation and discrimination known as Jim Crow laws that pervaded much of the United States until the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. The landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 declared segregation in public schools unconstitutional, signaling the beginning of the end for legal segregation in the United States.