NEW ORLEANS – Today, Wednesday, June 7, marks the 125th anniversary of the arrest of Homer Plessy for violating Louisiana’s Separate Car Act of 1890. The Plessy & Ferguson Foundation will present its annual Plessy Day Celebration at the New Orleans Jazz Museum in the Old U.S. Mint, 400 Esplanade Ave. at 6:00 p.m.
Historian Keith Weldon Medley described the crisis of June 1892 in his book, “We as Freemen Plessy v. Ferguson” (Pelican, 2003), “Though Homer Plessy was born a free man of color and enjoyed relative equality while growing up in Reconstruction era New Orleans, by 1890 he could no longer ride in the same carriage with white passengers. Plessy’s act of civil disobedience was designed to test the constitutionality of the Separate Car Act, one of the many Jim Crow laws that threatened the freedoms gained by blacks after the Civil War.”
The program begins with a Second Line Procession led by the Carl Leblanc Band.
Keith Plessy, a descendant of Homer Plessy, will discuss the strategies of resistance used by the Citizen’s Committee to challenge Louisiana Act 111 of 1890. Keith says “New Orleans is known around the world as the birthplace of Jazz. As we approach the 300th birthday of the city of New Orleans, it has yet to be recognized as the cradle of the Civil Rights Movement of the 20th century. The music and the movement are one in the same.”
New Orleans jazz experts Dr. Brice Miller, Professor Jesse McBride, author Freddi Evans and Dr. Michael White will discuss the emergence of jazz as a response to the legal, social and economic restraints of the late 1890’s through early 20th century New Orleans.
This event is co-sponsored by the New Orleans Jazz Museum, and the first in a series of public programs planned for the 125th Anniversary of Homer Plessy’s arrest.
All events are free and open to the public.