In 1890, Louisiana passed the Separate Car Act. The law required all railroad companies carrying passengers to have separate cars for white and non-white passengers. Planned by the Citizens' Committee, the Plessy case sought to test the constitutionality of the Separate Car Act, challenging that it violates the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments. Born in New Orleans, a 30-year-old shoemaker, Homer describes himself as light-skinned because he was seven-eighths white and only one-eighth black, making it difficult to identify his race. (American Experience, 2006) On June 7, 1892, Homer Plessy boarded the East Louisiana train. He registered as a black man; however, he sat in the “whites only” first-class carriage. The railway employees knew he was coming and arrested him just as the Citizens' Committee had predicted. Once arrested, Homer claimed they violated his Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendment rights. The Thirteenth Amendment abolishes slavery; in this case, Homer feels that his civil right to sit wherever he wanted made him feel like a slave to a certain part of the train. The Fourteenth Amendment recognizes that all citizens born or native born in the United States are citizens of the United States and of the State in which they live. No State shall make or enforce any law abridging the privileges or immunities of its citizens, nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, or deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law. (Ely, Finkelman, & Hall, 2005) The Fourteenth Amendment serves to protect Homer's personal liberty and American citizenship; however, the state was concerned with maintaining social order and peace. The case held that...... half of the paper......ites; but as long as they were “equal”. From this case onwards until 1954, when the "separate but equal" rule was abolished. Until 1954, segregated areas didn't just mean rail cars; but everywhere such as restaurants, bathrooms, schools and cinemas. In 1954, in Brown v the Board of Education, the Supreme Court outlawed segregation between black and white schools in the state of Kansas and twenty other states. If it weren't for the Plessy case, the Brown case may not have been resolved with the sentence it handed down. The Plessy case opened many doors and set a precedent for other cases that followed. These cases helped start the end of segregation in the United States, even if it took years, not without the commitment of lawyers and people who fought for their freedom and were considered truly equal by others and by the State.