Plessy v. Ferguson was a landmark 1896 U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation under the "separate but equal" doctrine. The case involved a man named Homer Plessy, who was of mixed race and refused to sit in a segregated railroad car designated for African Americans. Plessy's actions were a deliberate attempt to challenge the Louisiana law requiring racially segregated facilities on trains.

The Supreme Court's ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson established the legal precedent for racial segregation in public facilities, institutions, and transportation, allowing states to enact Jim Crow laws that enforced segregation and perpetuated systemic racism for decades to come. The decision had far-reaching consequences for African Americans, as it maintained the legitimacy of segregation and discrimination in the United States until it was eventually overturned by the Supreme Court in the landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education in 1954.