High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Homer Plessy (March 17, 1862 – March 1, 1925) was the American plaintiff in the United States Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson. Arrested, tried and convicted of a violation of one of Louisiana`s racial segregation laws, he appealed through Louisiana state courts to the U.S. Supreme Court, and lost. The resulting "separate-but-equal" decision against him had wide consequences for civil rights in the United States. The decision legalized state-mandated segregation anywhere in the United States, as long as the facilities provided for both blacks and whites were putatively "equal".