The case of Plessy v. Ferguson was brought before the Supreme Court in 1896. The plaintiff, Homer Plessy, was a black man who had been arrested for sitting in a whites-only railroad car in Louisiana. The defendant was John H. Ferguson, the judge who had found Plessy guilty of violating the state's Separate Car Act. The Supreme Court justices who heard the case were Chief Justice Melville Fuller, Associate Justices John Marshall Harlan, David J. Brewer, Henry Billings Brown, George Shiras Jr., Howell Edmunds Jackson, Edward Douglass White, and Rufus Wheeler Peckham.
