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Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards officially pardoned Homer Plessy, the Black man at the center of the U.S. Supreme Court's "separate but equal" ruling in 1896. The decision marked Louisiana's first posthumous pardon in state history.
A ceremony was held Wednesday (January 5) near the site of Plessy's 1892 arrest, where he was taken into custody after boarding a whites-only rail car in protest of a state law that segregated trains. His arrest eventually led to the Supreme Court Case Plessy v. Ferguson, which allowed racial segregation in public spaces for decades until it was overruled by the Court's 1954 ruling in Brown v. the Board of Education.
The pardon was approved in November by the Louisiana Board of Pardons. During the ceremony, Edwards said he was grateful to pardon Plessy and restore his "legacy of the rightness of his cause ... undefiled by the wrongness of his conviction," FOX 8 Live reports.
"Mr. Homer Plessy is officially pardoned by the State of Louisiana," said Edwards. "There is no expiration date on justice."
Gov. Edwards was joined at the ceremony by civil rights leaders, local and state elected officials, state judges and descendants of Homer Plessy.
"With the stroke of his pen, Governor John Bel Edwards opens a new chapter in the legacy of Homer Adolph Plessy," said Keith Plessy, one of his descendants. "This historic posthumous pardon is proof that 125 years after his conviction, the state of Louisiana recognizes and honors Plessy for his role in opening the gates of the Civil Rights Movement of the 20th century."
The full ceremony was streamed live on Facebook and can be seen here.