High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Homer Plessy 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 to the Supreme Court, and lost. The resulting "separate-but-equal" decision against him had wide consequences for civil rights in the United States. The decision legitimized segregation anywhere in the United States, as long as the facilities provided for both blacks and whites were "equal".Plessy, born in 1863 on St. Patrick's Day, grew up at a time when black people in New Orleans could marry whomever they chose, sit in any streetcar seat, and attend integrated schools. As an adult, Homer Plessy found that those gains from the Reconstruction era had eroded.