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Plessy as “Passing”: Judicial Responses to Ambiguously Raced Bodies in Plessy v. Ferguson
Author(s) -
Golub Mark
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
law and society review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.867
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1540-5893
pISSN - 0023-9216
DOI - 10.1111/j.1540-5893.2005.00234.x
Subject(s) - separate but equal , doctrine , supreme court , law , identity (music) , race (biology) , legitimacy , white (mutation) , ambiguity , equal protection clause , legislation , political science , sociology , gender studies , philosophy , biology , genetics , politics , linguistics , gene , aesthetics
The Supreme Court's decision in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) is infamous for its doctrine of “separate but equal,” which gave constitutional legitimacy to Jim Crow segregation laws. What is less‐known about the case is that the appellant Homer Plessy was, by all appearances, a white man. In the language of the Court, his “one‐eighth African blood” was “not discernible in him.” This article analyzes Plessy as a story of racial “passing.” The existence of growing interracial populations in the nineteenth century created difficulties for legislation designed to enforce the separation of the races. Courts were increasingly called upon to determine the racial identity of particular individuals. Seen as a judicial response to racial ambiguity, Plessy demonstrates the law's role not only in the treatment of racial groups, but also in the construction and maintenance of racial categories.